


Somebody That I Used to Know

by hylander



Category: Hit the Floor (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Racism, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-05-09 02:16:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 32
Words: 130,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14707205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hylander/pseuds/hylander
Summary: You didn't have to cut me off, make out like it never happened and that we were nothing- October 2020. Two years have passed since Jude, Zero and the Gang graduated from high school, and so far their life in college is much different from what they imagined it to be. Zero is thrown again into a spirale he thought he had already dealt with, while Jude is forced to face the consequences of life choices he had made in the past. But as long as they are together... right?(Sequel toThe End of a Decade)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys! :D  
> I'm very happy to start this sequel and I hope you'll still enjoy what I have in store for our boys!  
> Feedbacks and comments are very appreciated <3

Zero climaxed through half-gritted teeth, forcing his fingers to release the edge of the desk he had grabbed at some point after his pants had been unbuckled and that he had stopped thinking at all. He fought the need to let his head fall back on the headrest of the seat, and took a few breaths before lifting himself up. His muscles were still a little taut but nothing he couldn’t handle.

He stood up and started to pull his pants and boxers back up as Nessa rose up to her feet. She proceeded to adjust her crop top back in the right places and various strands of her black hair behind her ears.

“Shit, two missed phone calls,” he muttered to himself when he got ahold of his phone.

“You’re always running around,” Nessa pointed out dryly.

Zero raised a ‘so what’ look on her and she pouted. “I don’t know, I just thought it could be fun to do what regular people do. Just, ya’know, hang out,” she said.

Zero snorted. “Yeah sure, look, I told you. I don’t do relationships.”

What they had was great as it was. They were not dating, not holding hands, making out only when they were having sex, and she wasn’t pissed that he slept with her roommate two weeks ago. If that wasn’t the dream of every frat boy, he didn’t know what else it could be. But if she was starting to bring the whole ‘let’s hang out’ thing up, it was because it had been a while since they started whatever consensus they had, and thus she felt entitled to ask for more. He hadn’t made the call yet on either trying to bring her back to their original agreement, or simply to part ways before she became too clingy.

Nessa sat on the seat Zero just left. “You used to, as everybody seems to recall.”

Zero had a dry laugh. “Yeah, remember how that went? I don’t need a shrink, Ness, thanks.”

“I was just saying…”

“I gotta go, the bj was great as always. Catch ya later,” Zero cut her off before he left the room and a pouting Nessa behind.

He waited to reach the end of the corridor before dialing Kyle’s number.

“ _I thought you were dead,_ ” his childhood friend replied sharply as soon as she picked up. There were voices talking behind her on her side of the line and Zero paused for a moment. He felt self-conscious all of a sudden and double-checked he had closed his zipper.

“Funny. Look, something came up, I can’t come right now,” he said, starting to walk again.

An annoyed gasp echoed in his ear. “ _Where are you_?”

“Still at the Campus,” Zero replied half-heartedly as he was reaching the first floor of the building, then stepping outside. October was chilly but it wasn’t unpleasant. A breeze brushed his cheeks, still a little flushed, and ran through his dyed hair as he made his way outside.

Kyle scoffed. “ _We both know nothing came up. Get your ass in your car, everybody’s waiting for you_.”

Not everybody, he groaned by himself. “Kyle, listen to me for once in your life. It’s better if I don’t co-”

_“Jelena will be there. She’s literally crossing the fucking country to come. The least you could do is to bring your ass when you’re not even on the other side of the town!”_

He bypassed another dorm building, letting his gaze wander on the unknown faces scattered on the campus. “Will Terrence come?” Zero sneered.

There was a pause. “ _That’s different_ ,” Kyle retorted nonetheless, stubborn as ever.

Zero snorted. Yeah, sure. She was just that petty that she wasn’t willing to admit that Terrence wouldn’t ‘cross the fucking country’ just to be seated in front of his ex-girlfriend across the table, even if it meant not seeing his friends.

Kyle seemed to be switching strategy, going for the heart instead of… well, verbally punching him in the face. “ _I haven’t seen you in a month. I’m starting to wonder if you’re not just cutting ties with all of us. Except for Derek, that is._ ”

Zero had reached the front door of his dorm when he felt the unpleasant taste of guilt sneaking its way on his tongue. He paused for a moment after stepping inside. He hated her _so much_. He hated the fact that she was right, that she knew him so well, and that she was fucking _right_ all the time. He hadn’t meant to stay away so much but it had been a succession of events and before he could even process it, a month had passed. The year had started crazy and he frankly had been anticipating it to. It wasn’t his fault if he didn’t have one of those stupid time-turners.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “ _Fine_ , I’ll drop by. But I’m not staying long,” he eventually surrendered with a loud sigh.

“ _I’m gonna tell Raquel_ ,” she said hastily, and with that she just hung up.

Zero took his phone away from his face and just looked at it, torn between resignation because she had always acted this way, and shock because even after all these years of friendship, she still managed to surprise him anyway.

Grumbling under his breath, he started doing the math. It was nearly 1:30pm. Depending on the traffic, it would take between ten and thirty minutes. He shoved his phone in the pocket of his pants and proceeded to head upstairs to his bedroom, greeting acquaintances every now and then on his way.

It was one thing to come to a birthday party without having suspicious traces in suspicious places, giving away what had kept him busy on a Sunday afternoon. But he rather wanted to avoid any embarrassing statement from his wrinkled shirt or his tousled hair if he could help it.

*

Raquel opened the second box of cupcakes and proceeded to display them on the plate.

“When you left, he was biting. Now, he’s _yelling_. Can you believe his daycare called me the other day because he just couldn’t calm down?” she sighed after sharing a look with Jude, who was standing behind the kitchen countertop at his childhood friends’ place.

Raquel was perhaps eighth months into her pregnancy when she told her parents she didn’t want to put the baby up for adoption. It had not been an easy pill to swallow, and that was an understatement; everybody started to seriously wonder if the Saldanas’ wouldn’t just blow up at one point. But if there was something that people should recognize in Raquel’s parents, it was that they were the most understanding people in the world and admittedly the greatest parents Jude had ever seen.

Since living on campus with a child was out of the question, they were renting a place for their daughter and grandson, providing her with a baby-sitter, whenever she was attending her pre-med classes. At some point during their freshman year in college, Kyle started sharing the flat with Raquel, after dropping uni to focus on her project to become a professional event planner. Aside from the glitter of a career in Broadway, Jude couldn’t come up with a more fitting career plan for her, no matter how hard he was trying.

“You know, I heard most kids were going through a phase where they just kinda regress when they are with other kids. I guess he’s just behaving perfectly normal for his age,” Jude said with an encouraging smile. At this moment, he heard a giggle and turned around to spot the kid running through the living room. “Who do we have here, uh?” Jude asked with a chuckle as he lifted his godson in his arms.

With his black curls, his deep brown eyes and the purple pacifier with a blue hedgehog he was still refusing to let go of even to say hello, Miguel, who was officially two since midnight, looked nothing like the ticking bomb he actually was. No matter that Jude was trying to downplay his part in the miracle, even he couldn’t object to the fact that the boy had been astonishingly quiet since his godfather had arrived.

Kyle waltzed in the kitchen with a dramatic sigh she knew the secret of. “Luckily for us we didn’t plan to have everyone here for dinner or the food would be long burnt,” she groaned with an eye-roll.

Jude laughed and kept distracting Miguel with the stuffed fox he was always carrying these days. Last time it was a stuffed baby seal, and before Jude departed, a bunny. Kyle helped Raquel unpack the remaining cupcakes.

“You should think about making a living out of it,” Derek drawled as he entered the kitchen. “Yelling at people during parties for money.”

“It’s an actual job, with an actual job-title attached to it, you know that right?” Kyle sneered, a hand resting on her hip, as Ahsha was greeting Miguel with lots of smiles and giggles.

They all hugged in salutations, a little awkwardly for Jude since the boy was still firmly refusing to let go of his godfather. Raquel left the kitchen with a murderous glance to everyone who would dare touch one of the cupcakes and Kyle followed her in her wake. Jude and Ahsha soon started to talk about her life in BCU.

“I can’t believe it’s been almost eight months since we were all gathered here,” Ahsha eventually said as she perched herself on one of the kitchen stools, adjusting her vibrant yellow dress on her crossed legs.

Jude kept his eyes on Miguel, and Derek cleared his throat. Jude could feel the glance he was giving to Ahsha right now but happy squeals echoing from the front door cut short the awkward situation.

“Seems that aunt Jelena finally made it here, huh?” Jude said with a smile. “You go say hi?”

Miguel nodded happily and started babbling something, but with his pacifier in his mouth, no one could actually understand most of it. Jude got that he was excited because he started battling air with his feet, and he lowered him to the ground. The boy ran through the kitchen, only to jump right into Jelena’s knees as she entered the room.

“Well, hello, little King,” she greeted him with one of her rare, true smiles. She lowered herself to be the size of her godson. The presence of a large gift bag didn’t go unnoticed by Miguel, who started asking if it was for him.

“Oh, I don’t know. Have you been a good boy?” she asked seriously, raising one perfect eyebrow to mark her question.

Miguel seemed conflicted. “Not always,” he confessed, and Jude couldn’t help a laugh.

“Well, let’s just say it was a one-time-thing. Alright?” Jelena said and Miguel was too happy to nod at that.

His godmother received a kiss from him as Raquel urged him to say hello, and then he trailed the bag towards the table, escorted by Derek who helped him put the gift bag with the other pile of gifts.

Jelena stood back up, looking as great as ever, even with a six hours jetlag behind her. The only striking difference with her usual self was that for once, she had renounced straightening her hair, the curls around her face somehow managing to soften her iron glare. She greeted Jude with some kind of hug – that was as far as she was usually going with public displays of affection.

“I’m glad you could make it,” he sincerely said with a smile.

“How was Seoul? We barely talked about it,” she pointed out as she was taking her electric leather jacket off.

Jude shrugged. “It was great. It was something interesting and I don’t regret going there. Not sure I’d live there though.”

Raquel hovered next to them with a kicking and fussing Miguel. “He wants to be with _Uncle Jude_ ,” she sighed with an eye-roll.

“Uncle on duty,” Jude snorted, opening his arms so that Raquel could hand him the capricious boy. The boy settled happily on Jude’s lap as he was sitting on one of the kitchen stools, and Jude resumed his conversation with Jelena about the pros and cons of the Korean University he had gotten back from, less than a month before.

“Uncle Z,” Miguel squealed despite the pacifier in his mouth.

Jude lifted his eyes over Jelena’s shoulder, only to see, standing in the doorframe and surrounded by Kyle and Derek, his ex-boyfriend.

*

All in all, it could have gone worse than that, they all thought at one point.

No one threw the cutlery, no one voluntarily punctured someone else’s tires, and no one actually yelled or called someone else names. To say that the afternoon was a success would be a clear, well-defined step too far, but it had gone _mostly well._ Terrence’s absence was felt more than they were actually willing to admit it, especially in respect to Jelena. The two had broken up about a year ago after Terrence had cheated on her, and although Derek and Zero had openly made their views clear on the matter – ‘ _Are you fucking kidding me’_ and ‘ _You suck man’_ had ever since become quotes almost as legendary as Ross’ ‘ _We were on a break’ –_ they had remained friends with Wall.

Expectedly, Zero was the last one to arrive and the first one to leave. The fact that he came at all was probably thanks in large part to Kyle’s and Derek’s efforts, rather than Raquel’s. Jude had told her repeatedly that he was fine with them being friends, but he suspected that Raquel didn’t buy it (maybe because she had a crappy experience with an ex-boyfriend), no matter how sincere Jude was. As easy as Jelena and Terrence’s break up seemed to have been (Terrence had cheated, it was easy for everybody to pick a side), Jude and Zero’s felt, according to Raquel, like one of those divorce settlements that took years and looked like they would never end. Jude barely restrained himself from asking her if cheating on his boyfriend would have made it easier for them to handle, but he just shrugged it off instead.

After Zero’s exit, Derek and Ahsha left shortly after, closely followed by Jelena, who was supposed to meet with her family before departing for the airport. Soon, it was just Jude, Kyle and Raquel.

“Are you okay? You haven’t spoken two words for over an hour,” Kyle pointed out as she was collecting the dirty paper napkins from the table.

Raquel had put Miguel to bed for his nap a few minutes ago, and the flat was quiet. Jude raised his eyes to his friend, then shrugged, though a little stiffly. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Are we pretending that we are talking about nothing in particular, yet knowing that we are actually talking about that big, giant, pink elephant standing in the room?” Kyle said, resting her hands on her hips as she kept looking at him.

Jude sighed. “Kyle, I knew he would come, and if I hadn’t been fine with it, I wouldn’t be here right now. Do you think I cry my eyes out every time we cross paths on Campus?”

Which they never actually did for months, but it wasn’t like Jude actively avoided his ex-boyfriend _on purpose_. It was just fate helping him out…or perhaps not. Fate had very little to do with him leaving the country for three months, but that was beside the point. He had not crossed the _world_ to avoid Zero. There was an opportunity and he had just applied, end of story.

Kyle pressed her lips together. “Okay, if you say so. But just so you know, I’m glad you’re back… _once again._ Will you keep showing up every now and then in our lives?”

Jude glanced at her, then snorted. “You knew I wasn’t leaving forever. It was just a three month thing.”

“You could have decided to remain there,” she pointed out, a little accusingly.

“In Seoul? Thanks but no thanks. It was a great experience though.”

If he was skimming over the three weeks where he had been sick because apparently his body wasn’t adjusting well (how messed up was that?), and all the other stuff from life that had made him so ridiculously homesick that he wanted to hit himself, he didn’t show it. 

Conversations with Kyle always gave him that strange feeling that they were scripted, and that she would potentially make a remake with Zero as soon as she would be able to do so. He knew he was being ridiculous and frankly paranoid.

There was no reason why Kyle and Zero would keep talking about him, over six months after their break up. Besides, Jude had spent a significant amount of time this very afternoon with the hickey on Zero’s neck on display to make it clear that he had moved on. With whom, boy, girl, Jude didn’t want to know. The problem was that his ex-boyfriend had become one of the star players of the basketball team, that he was considered one of the Kings of the damn Campus, and that there were many, many possibilities that Jude would hear about his prowess outside of the court, whether he wanted it or not.

*

“So, I get that you’ve got some serious stuff going on?” Kyle asked innocently, playing with the straw in her drink. Two days had passed since Miguel’s birthday party and she had decided that they needed to hang out again. Zero knew she was very pleased to be the only girl to actually get to hang out with him even though she didn’t live on campus anymore.

Zero looked up from his phone and quirked a brow to his best friend. “Like what?” he deflected, taking a sip from his Diet Coke.

Kyle gestured to her chin.

“Like that thing on your neck,” she said, mimicking a spot above her own collarbone.

Zero couldn’t restrain his hand from reaching for the said spot with a curse. Shit, he had forgotten about this one. At least it explained why his mother, Allie, had been so insistent at the beginning of the afternoon about him meeting someone and finally moving on or some stupid bullshit. He tried to adjust his shirt so the fading hickey would be hidden by the fabric, but the damage was already done.

Zero groaned. “Can we not talk about it?”

Kyle cocked her head. “Why not?” She seemed almost offended.

“Because it means nothing, and I know you’re still team Kinkade or something and I don’t want you to start judging me about the fact that I’m having a good time every now and then,” Zero grumbled.

Kyle straightened up on her high stool. “Look, I’m not team Kinkade, that makes no sense. I’m just trying to picture you with someone who would make you happy. Turns out the only one I’ve ever seen you being really happy and yourself with _was_ Jude. That’s all,” she shrugged.

Zero glared at her but as always she just ignored him. “Besides, not so long ago you were crying your eyes out whenever you saw a plaid shirt.”

“I _never_ did that.”

Kyle gave him a look. “What about the plaid shirt I found in your dorm?”

“Will you stop with that?!” Zero hissed, frustrated.

But Kyle wasn’t done and barely listened to him. “Y _our dorm,_ ” she repeated, emphasizing it as if it was the most truth-telling thing in the world. “It wasn’t in your bedroom at _home_ , not deep in your _closet_ , it was _under your bed_.”

“I-got-rid-of-it,” Zero furiously hammered.

Okay, it had happened three months ago. Kyle dropped by at the end of the year for whatever reason in his dorm and that’s where she managed to find that stupid plaid shirt, thrown in the corner of the room.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you broke the most basic rule in a break-up,” she gasped, putting the plaid shirt on display.

Zero reached for it and snatched the piece of clothing from her hands, before shoving it in his closet, closing the door with a kick of his foot. “I thought the most basic rule was not to drunk-text your ex,” he snapped.

“Debatable,” Kyle conceded after a second. “ _Point is_ , this shirt belongs to _Jude_. You shouldn’t be having this in _your fucking bed_. And just to be clear, whatever you do with it, I don’t want to know.”

Truth was, he had never done _anything_ with that stupid shirt. Okay, he had known the entire time it was there. But he didn’t need her to start with all her big hypotheses, all this pop psychology, according to which keeping this was just a ‘way to hurt himself emotionally’ and ‘keep the pain real’ as a form of ‘self-destruction’ and ‘self-harm’. But like, _hello_ , it was a fucking plaid shirt that had been collecting dust for months under his bed. He wasn’t jerking himself off with it or actually _sleeping_ with it. It meant nothing. _Nothing._

Kyle studied him for a moment. “You know, it’s not because you’re not with Jude anymore that I’m getting worried for your ass. It’s because it doesn’t look like you’re happy.”

Zero snorted. “Oh, because you’re an expert in happiness now?”

“I just want you to tell me you’re happy,” Kyle said defiantly.

Zero considered his drink in silence. Happiness, uh? He had never been very adept at this concept. Most of his life had always been more or less shitty. Actually, these past few months he had focused on _not thinking_. It was _not thinking_ or _thinking too much_ , so he just went with _not thinking_. It was easier to stop thinking about the fact that he was the one who had messed up and hurt not only himself but Jude in the process. Anything was easier than just thinking about Jude.

He didn’t want to think about all the mess that was currently swirling around in his head ever since he had set his eyes on him the weekend before. _Out of sight_ , they said. He wasn’t typically one to believe old sayings, but this one, well, this one fucking _hurt_. Not that knowing Jude being somewhere on the other side of the world had made him forget anything about him, he could remember it all too well, but as the weeks went on, it started to be a twinge in his heart. Not a fucking kitchen knife stabbing his heart over and over again. And last Sunday, oh God, _last Sunday_ he could have sworn someone had fucking taken that kitchen knife and proceeded to cut his heart in slices.

That’s that stupid, painful heart that drove him in the first place to sleep with Nessa, and her roommate, and several other girls along the way. He didn’t want to start thinking because he spent enough nights staring at the ceiling, wondering why, why not, how, and then what’s next.

Eventually, Zero shrugged. “I’m fine.”

He tried to ignore the look Kyle gave him in return. That wasn’t what she had asked. But that was the closest answer he could give.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Esteban, no one is going to rip this book from you, I’m not forcing you to read while you’re eating,” Lionel Hemsworth, formerly Davenport and formerly Kinkade, sighed.

The kid shrugged. “I’m good.”

Jude could swear that he had not even finished the page but turned it with a loud paper sound on purpose anyway. Lionel gave him a look and Jude bit back a smile, looking down at his plate instead. It was a very average Friday night at Lionel’s. Back when he still had a social life, Jude would drop by only every once in a while, but to Lionel’s pleasure, he started to come more often for dinner. Of course, it didn’t mean she didn’t ask questions about his sudden lack of social life, but she usually avoided doing so in front of the kids, which always left at least dinner for Jude to prepare his answers to the interrogation he would obviously get trapped into as soon as Esteban and Gracie left the table.

“Don’t you want to talk about what you’ve been doing today?” Lionel insisted, with this ever enthusiastic and almost hysterical tone she was using these days.

The eight-year-old boy granted Lionel a very stern look above his black-rimmed glasses. “I went to school. I learned stuff. I saw stuff. I heard stuff. And now I’m reading and eating.”

Lionel gave Jude a helpless look. _See what I go through?_ was written all over her face and he honestly would be laughing if he didn’t know how discouraged she was feeling. Esteban had been behaving like that ever since he crossed the threshold of the duplex over two months before, and Lionel’s enthusiasm was now clearly about to crumble.

Jude cleared his throat. “Any chance you made a friend or two?”

God he sucked so much at playing the big brother. Esteban seemed to think the same because the look he gave him made him clearly feel like the kid had taken pity on him for even asking.

“A few,” he said, and he flipped another page before eating a forkfull of his food.

Both Lionel and Jude knew they wouldn’t get much from him whenever he was in such a mood. Esteban was a tough kid, but the contrary of what most people would assume was ‘tough’. He was working well at school, eating veggies without starting trouble, and wasn’t all that interested in video games. The only real problem was his behavior; he was quiet and over-analytical, cynical beyond his years, and generally dismissive. Comic books were filling entire shelves in his bedroom, and it was impossible to ever get more than two words out of him when he was lost in one of them.

Next to Lionel, his little sister Gracie gave Jude a considering look. She had the same black hair and dark brown eyes as her brother; she had a much sweeter nature – though she was only five. Jude suspected that Lionel was getting increasingly worried about Esteban because she didn’t want Gracie to embrace the same behavior in the near future.

“Why are you sleeping at school?” she asked with a furrowed brow.

“Because that’s what kids do when they grow up,” Jude replied.

She turned to Lionel. “I don’t want to sleep at school. I don’t like when I don’t sleep in my bed.”

 “You won’t have to for _many_ years,” Lionel mumbled dryly.

Gracie was now helplessly staring at Jude. “I don’t want to grow up.”

Esteban conceded a look to his sister. “But you can’t do Crush'n Gusher if you don’t grow up,” he simply observed.

Gracie’s mouth dropped open and she started wiggling or her seat. “Can I grow up _and_ stay little?”

Lionel sighed. “Honey, if we had the answer, trust me life would be very different.”

The rest of dinner was spent in relative quiet, and when Esteban left the table after dessert, Gracie quickly finished her strawberry yogurt before following him. Jude was always astonished to see that the boy was finding everything annoying except the babbling of his little sister. As always, Jude helped Lionel take the dishes to the kitchen. Instead of firing out all the questions she was usually dying to ask about him right away, Lionel seemed rather reserved.

“I’m starting to freak out about the hearing,” she confessed when Jude enquired about her mood.

Jude frowned. “Have you received an official convocation yet?”

She shook her head. “No, but it will come soon.”

Six months was supposed to be the limit for the adoption to finalize, after the kids had been placed under their prospective adoptive parents’ care. The Reyes kids had stumbled into Lionel’s (and Jude’s) life at the beginning of summer.

Well, _Gracie_ stumbled into their lives.

She didn’t have any known relatives to care for her after the death of her mother in a car crash a few weeks prior. Lionel had fallen in love with her as soon as she had seen her. Everything was going mostly well, until Lionel found out about Esteban. Everybody, including Jude, tried to make her admit that taking care of two children instead of one would be completely different, but it wasn’t like Lionel would listen. She simply couldn’t admit that Esteban and Gracie could be separated like that, and Jude couldn’t actually blame her for thinking so.

And here they were.

“Don’t worry. He’s not the easiest kid to handle but he knows he’s gonna be happy here, with you and Gracie. It will be fine,” Jude assured warmly.

Lionel hummed in response and they filled the dishwasher with the empty plates, then headed for the living room. The duplex was so quiet that it was almost surprising to see several toys scattered in the room, as a reminder that there were kids somewhere.

“You've got that look on your face again, Jude,” Lionel said as they were sitting on the couch.

“What look?”

Lionel sighed. “The one that made me accept to send you off to the other side of the world, hoping you would forget it there.”

Jude's eyes fell somewhere else and Lionel nudged him softly with her elbow as she tucked her legs against her. “Tell me what happened.”

He didn’t try to deflect. “Zero was at Raquel’s last Sunday.”

And ever since, it felt like his world was suddenly upside down all over again. It had been a week; a full week where he tried to forget everything, from Zero’s blue eyes, to his blond hair, to his manners. He didn’t want to think about him, about his hands, about his lips, about everything he had loved about him, everything and even more. All the things that made him clear the record the first time, just hoping that it’d work again. And now? Now he was feeling even worse. Not only did it look like Zero was perfectly fine with the situation, but he seemed to find it rather easy to move on to the next thing.

Lionel moved closer. “Look, you’ve never told me clearly what happened. All I know is that this situation makes you sad and it makes you suffer, and who cares if you show it at some point?”

“I’m not… I’m not _sad_ ,” Jude countered.

Lionel gave him a look. “But you’re suffering.”

“I’m pissed. Okay? That’s how I feel. I’m pissed, and frustrated. And I don’t want to feel like that anymore. That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling for six months and I’m sick of it!”

Maybe some part of him, some ridiculous, hopelessly naïve part of him, was still hoping that seeing Zero would, somewhat, miraculously _heal_ whatever wounds were left. How, Jude had no idea, but _still_. They hadn’t seen each other since the moment Zero said ‘It’s over’, last spring. And now Jude was even angrier. Why did it feel so easy for everyone to move on from where they were six months before? Terrence had someone else, Jelena had dated a couple of guys, and even Raquel dated someone at one point. And obviously, The One and Only, who apparently felt very comfortable with his private life. That wasn’t fair. He wanted to move on too, just like _everybody else_.

“Why am I the only one who’s fucking stuck behind?” Jude hissed again bitterly.

Lionel looked at him. “Jude, you’re not stuck anywhere. Did it never occur to you that you needed that time? It’s not a contest. It’s not about who’s getting back on track first, or whatever you call it these days.”

Jude wanted to object to that. It was always some kind of twisted contest. Why would Lionel have only accepted to date his father after her first divorce, more than a decade ago, if it wasn’t exactly for that particular purpose? Somehow, Jude couldn’t stop wondering if he was the problem for hanging, voluntarily or not, onto something that was over, or if Zero had never shared the same feelings in the first place. Either way, there definitely _was_ something wrong with this situation and he didn’t know what to do or even what to think about it.

*

“You look like shit,” Derek stated blatantly as he took a sip from his cup.

Zero groaned, looking down at his burger. “You’d look like shit too if you’d been through two hundred pull-downs and a hundred push-ups.”

He was practically sure that Alford was still punishing him for last year, no kidding.

Ever since Zero had become single again, he and Derek started to look an awful lot like an old couple, and Thursday nights were mostly burger night, before whatever plans they had later. Derek had the decency not to complain too much about missing Ahsha, who was off in Berkeley, and not to enquire about whoever Zero was screwing at the time. Zero was frankly relieved. He didn’t want to start having those annoying conversations, as to why the unnamed person would be good enough to have sex with but not to actually _date_.

Derek eyed him carefully for a moment then leaned over the table. “Your shoulder,” he said bluntly, looking somewhat pissed. Zero hissed at him to shut the fuck up, glancing around in the crowded fast food joint as the closest people to their booth turned to look at them.

“Your shoulder,” Derek repeated, although much lower, gesturing from his drink as he was talking. “It's your shoulder that keeps making you miserable, am I right?”

Zero frowned. “It's not-”

But Derek had known him for like _ever_ and didn’t even give him the time to deflect properly. “Dude it’s been five months. If it keeps hurting, you’ve got to tell someone. People are starting to take huge bets on you.”

Zero let out an annoyed sigh, and he leaned back against the backrest of the booth. “Don’t go all ESPN on me already. It’s just a strained muscle. I’ve got trouble sleeping these days. Not to mention that the push-ups and the pull-downs are _so_ not helping,” he mumbled.

The fact that he was sleeping four hours each night ever since he crossed paths with Jude at Raquel and Kyle’s was beside the point. It surely was because of something else. Like, all the pressure of the beginning of a new year for instance, particularly after being fucking benched for more than two months at the end of the previous school-year. Or the fact that Derek was taking his future career as a sportswriter way too seriously, and had made a life mission to, like, _cover_ his ass, literarily speaking.

Now that Zero was Team Captain, he had to double-check every single step he was taking, both on and off court, and man that was getting tiring already and it’d been only _a month._ He had always known that it’d get serious at some point, but he had not expected to feel so… numb, when it would. Where was the thrill of being in charge? Where was the adrenaline of having finally reached at least the first real step towards his ultimate goal, the one he had set for himself his _entire_ _life_? Not to mention that the conversations in the locker room started to sound more like crossfire sessions than casual small talk with buddies. Zero would never admit it to them because, well, yeah, he still had his balls, but man he really missed having Terrence and Derek around.

Although right now, he could have done without Derek’s discerning skills. His friend even looked offended. “Don’t bullshit me.”

Zero looked up at him. “I’m _not_ , I swear. It doesn’t hurt when I play, it doesn’t hurt when I move or when I do whatever I do. I just strained a muscle during the night, _that’s_ _all_.”

Derek hummed in response, clearly unimpressed.

Five months had passed since he stopped wearing that stupid sling and if anything, he was glad he had been able to dodge the bullet during those awful summer days where everything felt like fire and you could literally cook fried eggs on the sidewalk. Okay, maybe sometimes it was tingling a tiny bit whenever the weather was changing – what the fuck, he had thought that stupid stuff happened to _old_ people? – but other than that, he was being truthful to Roman.

It was still fairly early when Zero got back to the Hill, and he was already preparing himself for the usual sneers from his roommate as he made his way inside of the building. He had been sharing a room with a 5ft. 8in. pain-in-the-ass called Ted since his sophomore year, and as far as Zero was concerned, there wasn’t a single thing that was actually getting them on the same page. Ted was some kind of control freak of an engineer-to-be. Most of the time, they were barely talking at all, which was fine. Zero didn’t expect him to kiss his ass, and as long as Ted wasn’t plotting his downfall, he could live with that. _Except_ that Ted wasn’t the silent type. He was actually the judging type. Always making snarky jokes about Zero’s supposed walks of shame (which was stupid, because, he wasn’t _ashamed_ ). And the one time he happened to make-out with a girl from Ted’s circle of friends, his roommate had upgraded to the ‘extra-annoying’ mode.

To Zero’s surprise, his roommate was nowhere in sight and the dorm empty; he briefly considered calling someone (anyone, he wasn’t really picky) to hang out but as he was taking off his jacket, he started to think that maybe a full eight-hour night sleep could help that stupid strained muscle in his shoulder. They were a week away from the first game of the season and he better not arrive at practice with bleary eyes.

*

“ _Shit”_ , was the first thing that blurted out of Jude’s mouth after two hours of pure dedication to his criminal law course. He was picking up his stuff, eyes almost blurry, when instead of reaching for his iPad like he had planned, he had managed to send it overboard. Just as Jude was preparing himself to hear the sound of it crashing on the floor of the row below, a hand stretched to grab it.

“Well, that was close,” Daniel said as he handed him the iPad back.

“Thanks,” Jude sighed, relieved. He quickly put it back in the safety of his messenger bag. “I really should put those notes on a drive.”

Daniel laughed. “Gonna spare you a heart attack or two.”

They met at the beginning of the year, a few weeks ago. The guy was sitting in the row below Jude’s and had teased him after an extremely intense tapping session that left his classmate to hear the noise of Jude’s removable keyboard for a couple of hours. The guy had short, light-brown hair and friendly dark eyes that seemed to light up when he smiled, which contrasted with his very strange – and a little morbid – taste for salty murder cases. From the few things Jude knew about him, he was slightly older than him and had worked as a bartender before starting college. They both found common ground when they started to complain about several of their teachers and courses.

Jude had never been so sure about himself than when he thought he could totally master his busy schedule back in his freshman year _and_ a social life. At the time, he had a very socialized boyfriend, a bunch of friends on the campus, and he had stupidly thought that with just a _tiny bit_ of organization, he might actually get through this (pre-law, law school, _life_ ), without too much difficulty.

Obviously he should have known better.

By the end of the first year, his social life was well-settled, his sex-life _more_ than fulfilling, his dorm quite an enjoyable place to hang-out… and his grades had dropped to the vicinity of the center of the Earth. He surprisingly managed to pass this year, but there were enough sleepless nights spent at the library or simply in his bed, wide awake staring at the ceiling, to promise himself that he would _not_ do that again next year.

The fact that by the next spring, he had broken up with his boyfriend, seen his roommate leave for NYU, quarreled with Kyle, more or less ghosted Derek in the process, and to some extent avoided any social event that would have resulted in having people talking about him, it all probably helped him to get more focused on his grades at the end of his second year. And ever since September, he dedicated 100% of his time to his courses, stopped texting basically half of his contacts during lectures – yes, he had done that in the past –, and finally paid attention enough to take notes… _Lots_ of notes. Probably much more than necessary – he was _this close_ to writing down whenever their professor was taking a breath or a sip of water. All in all, it gave him a feeling of accomplishment, and if he was actually struggling to go through that massive amount of notes at the end of the day, at least it gave him something to think about. Something that wasn’t, for instance, his ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend(s), or sex-friend(s), or whatever.

Daniel was nice and actually the first person Jude had bothered talking to since the beginning of the year. Problem was, Jude was pretty lame when it came to gay stuff. Like, really lame. They were halfway through their second coffee when Jude realized that Daniel was actually hitting on him, and that he probably had been since day 1. At first, he just pretended not to notice it, and just stuck to what he assumed was his usual behavior. But after a while, Jude simply started to wonder what would be wrong with actually dating a guy like Daniel. He was cute, and nice, and pining for him. He could do worse, frankly, and it wasn’t like people were throwing themselves at him – not like he was searching for it anyway.

After the disastrous last frat party he attended, which ended up in the waiting room of the hospital, and the subsequent maelstrom of shitty consequences that ensued, Jude preferred to take a break from the campus’ social life. Thing was, with half of the Campus ready to murder him because he, Jude Kinkade, was somehow responsible for the fact that his back-then boyfriend, most promising member of the Bruins, ended up dislocating his shoulder in a fight with a guy Zero claimed in front of literally everyone, that Jude had been sleeping with, he _really_ needed that break.

Daniel brought Jude’s attention back to the present. “By the way, thank you for last time. The notes you sent me saved my ass, really,” he said again as they were walking side by side in the corridor.

Jude shrugged. “That’s fine really.”

Daniel seemed to be about to add something but then he checked the time on his phone. “You know, I still have to buy you a drink. Just, I don’t know, let me know whenever you feel like it.”

He was starting to walk away when Jude suddenly regained control of his body and his ability to talk. “What about tonight?” he blurted without really thinking. Daniel turned back, surprised and he felt stupid all of a sudden. “Yeah, no, I, uh, I’ve got this… thing tonight, but how about next Wednesday?” Jude quickly corrected. Daniel didn’t need to know how much of a loner he had become.

Daniel smiled. “Wednesday sounds great.”

Jude watched him as he walked away, and soon he was on his own in the empty corridor. So he had a date. _He_ had set up a date. Jude was still wondering what had gotten into him, what precise need had drove him to do that, when only this morning he thought that he didn’t particularly mind being single. If there was one thing he knew for sure, however, it was that it had _nothing_ to do with the hickey on Zero’s neck last Sunday.

And it wasn’t like anyone could actually prove he had seen it in the first place anyway.

*

“So, you’re starting off with Werner or what?”

Zero raised eyes to his teammate with a quirked eyebrow, and smirked when he met the eyes of Nando. “Why do you care who I’m getting with?”

Nando opened his locker. “Dude, I don’t give a shit about your sex-life. But Kitty _does care_ and I swear, if I gotta spend one more evening with my girl bragging about your ass, I might get real upset.”

Zero laughed whole-heartedly, even though he knew Nando was only _half-_ joking. He had almost forgotten that Nessa had ties with Kitty, his girlfriend (the girls had been roommates during their second year or something like that). And awfully enough, he had also forgotten that Nessa existed in the first place.

He shrugged, with one of his trademark smirks. “I’m just having a good time here and there. She’s on board with it and that’s good.”

Next to him, Molina snorted. “You’re one lucky bastard. Getting yourself some serious deal like that.”

“Yeah, well, apparently monogamy doesn’t seem a match for him,” Curtis drawled from the other side of the bench.

Zero turned towards him and gave him his best fake-delighted grin. “You know that’s an actual word, right? Your mom must be so proud of you right now.”

Curtis didn’t reply anything and just sneered his way out to the showers. Neither Nando nor Molina commented on the matter and the three ballers fell silent as they started changing clothes, other conversations filling the acoustic space. Curtis’ behavior wasn’t exactly surprising, even if it had become purely childish these days.

Curtis was a year older than him and missed his last shot at Captainship when the armband had been handed over to Zero, after Aaron Cohen graduated the summer before. That was the last strike it took for Kurt Curtis ( _yes_ , that was his actual name) to get from ‘slightly condescending teammate looking down on a rookie’, to ‘full bastard i-will-break-your-legs-if-i-ever-have-the-chance sulking adversary’, _especially_ after Zero had been injured.

In his crusade against him, Curtis was supported by a guy or two, generally Kors and Ryder. The rest of the team was at worst silent, at best supported their Team Captain.  Most of them were just trying not to act like they were discussing Alford’s orders and decisions, and passed through bowing their heads and not starting a mess in the locker room. It hadn’t been exactly easy for Zero to make his mark among his new teammates at the beginning of his freshman year, but after a few months, his trade-mark smirk and his salty jokes seemed to have found an audience with some slightly older guys. Rafael Molina and Fernando “Nando” Rojes were both a year older too, and at least a head taller than him. They were mostly nice and easy-going dudes, and Zero had been hanging out with them and their girls every now and then. Kitty, Nando’s girlfriend, was the one who somewhat set him up with Nessa a few months ago now. Assuming it was setting up when it was just all about casual sex.

Zero was putting his hoodie on when someone called out his name. Glenn Morrison, one of the Assistant Coaches, was waiting in the doorway of the locker room. Zero closed his locker and zipped his bag before throwing it on his shoulder, exiting the locker room with a slap on Nando’s back.

Morrison drew him out of the doorway, with that permanent frown of his. “Don’t get on Curtis’ nerves. If he brags, you let him. Understood?”

It took Zero a groan before he complied.

“How’s your shoulder doing so far?” Morrison asked. 

“I’m good,” Zero replied firmly.

Morrison eyed him warily. A few people passed them and the Assistant Coach waited for them to be out of hearing distance to resume their conversation.

The man had taken a particular interest in him three semesters after his arrival in the team. It wasn’t enough to be a good player to actually stand a chance in NCAA, you also needed to get accustomed to inside politics most of the players had never even thought about beforehand. The players were not those who were doing most of the thinking, and for some of them, it was better that way; those who were taking the dibs and running the show behind closed doors were the Assistant Coaches. Each of them had their own player to champion, and if you managed to get one in your corner, it meant you were not just doing fine, but you were doing great. You didn’t stand a chance at Captainship, let alone in NBA, if you were not actively backed up by an Assistant Coach at some point, and Zero knew Morrison had to pull some serious strings to get him the armband after five months in a sling.

The rumors surrounding the frat party at the end of last year had taken no time in coming back full circle to Morrison’s ears; when Alford was preaching for everything that wasn’t basketball related to remain off-court, Morrison scolded him and had furiously hammered him to get his mind on track, and to finally make true allies on the team if he was hoping to make it in the long run.

“You touched your shoulder twice today,” Morrison said again, looking in the distance. “If I can see it, everybody else can.”

Zero adjusted the strap of his bag on his left shoulder. “It was muscle memory, it’s fine.”

Morrison crossed his arms on his broad chest, looking him right in the eye. “Go easy on the pull-ups. Alford isn’t going to stick to your ass and count every single one of them. Don’t go beyond 200, and only once a week, and if you ever feel like it hurts, even a little, you go to the physio I gave you the name of. Heard me?”

Zero nodded and mentally took notes, as if those were religious principles.

If there was _one_ mistake to avoid, and some of his teammates had learned it at their own expense, it was to _never_ underestimate the Assistant Coaches. The fact that they were not worldwide billionaire players didn’t mean they didn’t know a lot more on the topic than the little rookies who had managed to get into NCAA and were still hoping to go farther. Morrison was in his fifties and had probably been into basketball as long as Zero’s insufferable grandfather had been in the Marines.

“Don’t screw up this shoulder a week away from the first game or you will have to deal with me,” Morrison eventually grumbled again as he walked away.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Can I crash on your couch for tonight?” Jude asked dryly as soon as Raquel opened the door.

She gave him a look. “Is the roomie being an ass again?”

Jude groaned in response. “You should have _really_ done a roommate agreement,” she commented. She took herself away from the threshold and Jude entered the flat.

Hell yeah he should have. Thing was, he had never actually needed one until now because things were fine. He had a _lot_ of experience in terms of living with a roommate, and starting off college, he had assumed it would be easy. And actually, it was…at the beginning. It hadn’t been until the end of his sophomore year in college that the other shoe eventually dropped; and that particular shoe was called Jas Velasco.

Jas was aiming to become a professional interpreter and was studying foreign languages and foreign cultures. The fact that he was himself a pure product of many different cultures and more than comfortable with his multiracial heritage could have easily made him a poster boy for foreign studies. Jas was nice, welcoming, fun to hang out with, capable of switching between three languages in a single conversation without taking a breath; and had clearly no interest whatsoever in being twisted up about literally anything. He was one of those (rare) people who had the exact same way to deal with every kind of news (good, bad, world-ending-troubles). A twitch of an eyebrow, a slight smirk, an unfazed shrug, and the aforementioned news was already long dealt with.

In the end, Jas’ mistake would forever lay in the fact that his eyes were much too green, that he was _way_ too hot, that his Brazilian accent was too much of a turn on to too many people; and most of all, that he happened, at some point, to clash with one, particular blond baller in the course of a memorable frat party seven months ago. Not to mention that Jas’ much unexpected left hook left a lingering memory long after every trace of his belongings had vanished from his and Jude’s dorm.

His new roommate was… different. Tony was a nice guy, but he was as different from Jas as it could be humanly possible. He was one of those just beyond average former varsity players, good-looking enough to be popular in high school but not a model, skilled enough to be a dutiful member of the baseball team but not good enough to pursue a career into sports; and most of all, everything but sexually ambiguous. He was cool with Jude being gay, but mostly because Jude didn’t actually had someone. Jude didn’t know if he’d be this cool if he ever brought someone in their dorm. Contrary to Jas, whose sex-life and even sexual orientation had remained a mystery to Jude, Tony didn’t mind bringing his girlfriend three times a week to their dorm, and there was only so much Jude could stand.

The first time he sought sanctuary at Raquel and Kyle’s, the latter had bluntly asked why he hadn’t asked Derek, since his own roommate was notably _never_ around and everyone knew it and envied Roman for it. Jude had been at a loss to actually answer that. Thing was, Derek was Zero’s wingman. And Jude still felt bitter that no one, including Derek, with whom he had been talking every now and then since he had come back from Korea, thought about telling him that Zero had _clearly_ moved on, before Jude’s eyes stupidly stumbled on the hickey on his ex-boyfriend’s neck.

He sat on one of the kitchen stools. “Where’s Kyle?”

The flat was surprisingly quiet and most of the time it just meant that she wasn’t around. Raquel shrugged. “She’s out. I think she’s pining over someone.”

Jude raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

He didn’t know why, but that particular information wasn’t to ease his brooding mood, and he hated himself for it.

“What was it tonight? Girlfriend again?” Raquel asked as she was handing him a beer. Apparently Kyle’s fake ID was still highly demanded these days, Jude remarked, but he accepted it nonetheless.

“No, tonight he found nothing better to do than to bring home three former teammates,” Jude rolled his eyes, and he took a sip from his beer. “Tony’s fine, I mean, we’re not best friends but he’s cool most of the time. It’s just that… yeah, it was easier before.”

There was silence and Raquel looked at him pensively for a moment. “Was Zero absolutely wrong all this time?” she asked.

Jude almost chocked in his drink. “Of course he was! I never slept with Jas,” he exclaimed, offended.

Raquel shushed him, pointing at the door leading to her bedroom, where Miguel was sleeping. Jude mumbled an apology.

“I’m not asking you if you slept with him, silly bean, I’m asking you if Zero had any reason to worry about you being as close to Jas as you were,” Raquel said.

Jude looked elsewhere and played with the beer bottle for a while. Jas was hot as hell. He wasn’t just nice, he was sassy and fun and smart. And admittedly, Jude could have totally been head over heels for him. Except that he hadn’t been, for one, tiny reason: Jude had voluntarily been ignoring the signs pointing as to whether Jas was gay or not (or bi for that matter). He had not sought to find out, and perhaps he should have. If Jas had been straight, then nothing, none of the shit with Zero, would have probably happened, and they would most likely still be together now. But something, deep down, had told Jude not to go down that particular road. Maybe it had been an awful mistake, maybe not. If Zero was ready to believe that Jude could cheat on him so easily, maybe it was because there was something else behind it, something like he wasn’t trusting Jude as much as he should be, and maybe their relationship was already doomed, Jas or not.

“Maybe I had a crush on Jas,” Jude admitted. “But at the end of the day, the only one I loved was Zero. The only one I wanted to be with, the only one I wanted to have _sex with_ was Zero. And no matter how many times I told him that, he didn’t believe me. That’s not how it should be.”

*

To say that the stakes were high for Zero’s very first game as the Team Captain of the Bruins of UCLA was an understatement. Frankly, Zero was in a phase where it was surely safer not to even bother talking to him the two days prior. His third year as a Bruin needed to get him to the NBA; and starting from there, every step mattered. His freshman year had been almost nonexistent, barely getting to play at all, to his utter frustration. It wasn’t until his sophomore year that he had the opportunity to prove himself on court. For the past three weeks, Curtis’ sulking behavior had been pretty much the first of Zero’s worries; the asshole had become unreliable and he was afraid that he would bring their discord on the court.

“Curtis would have more to lose in doing this than you, don’t you think?” Derek pointed out once.

Zero was forced to admit that his best friend was right, but it was mostly a lousy attempt to cheer himself up.

Everything was thrown out the window once and for all during second quarter, when Curtis found nothing better than to get involved in what looked like a fucking tripping incident.  After that, Zero couldn’t help but follow Curtis’ every move, scanning every single one of his actions, debating even the simple gesture of passing him the ball; to the point where _he_ almost missed an easy pass. It at least had the merit of forcing him to focus the fuck on his own game and his own scores. By the end of the game, Zero was emotionally rather than physically drained. The win they managed to pull out against the Montana Bobcats (88-76) barely made up for the way Alford found it interesting to scold him, once back in the locker room, for his lack of concentration.

“I can’t focus if I gotta watch every single one of Curtis’ fucking moves,” Zero bitterly spat out after showering.

“I doubt it was an accident,” Nando remarked helpfully.

Zero retrieved his clothes from his locker. “Because it wasn’t. He’s ready to play it dirty if it can make him improve his score and his visibility; and I’m telling you, that’s not gonna work with me.”

Molina joined them at that moment. “I get you’re talking about… you know.” He gestured with his chin towards Curtis’ locker, since he was still in the showers.

Nando sat in his own after putting his pants on, and leaned forward to talk to Molina, Zero standing between them. “You were close enough to see, right? Was it an accident?”

Molina looked conflicted. “That giant Bobcat was right between me and Curtis at that moment. You know, the big guy with the shaved head?”

“Bloom,” Nando completed helpfully.

Molina snapped his fingers. “Right, yeah, Bloom. That guy is huge, no kidding.”

“In short, you didn’t see anything,” Zero interrupted dryly.

“In short, not really, no,” Molina admitted.

Things grew quiet and Zero proceeded to dress after running his hand through his damp hair a handful of times. Okay, great, now he had a nervous tic.

“What I don’t get is why would he do this _tonight_?” Nando asked, like an afterthought, as he was halfway through putting his shirt on. “If I was about to throw my reputation away and risk being benched, I wouldn’t do that against the fucking Montana Bobcats. At least wait for a final game or to be facing the Blue Devils.”

Both Zero and Molina quirked a brow in his direction and Nando sheepishly adjusted his shirt on his shoulders. “I mean, that’s only the first game. It’s not like he’s got everything to lose.”

Tripping incidents were career-ending mistakes and Zero wouldn’t be caught dead trying to play dirty. He had too much to lose and he needed this year to be beyond any doubt of dirty play, and he wasn’t going to let Kurt _fucking_ Curtis ruin everything.

*

Jude had always been a nervous trainwreck and he’d known it long before Kyle actually put a label on it, so the fact that he was stressing the shit out of himself the two days leading up to his first date with Daniel was something he had, somehow, anticipated. The fact that he had not yet told anyone, not even Raquel, least of all Kyle or _Tony_ , was just another way to stress himself. With no one to tell him to calm the fuck down or not to worry for hours about having nothing to talk about, it was almost as if he had thrown himself into the fire on purpose, when in fact he had really not. Jude didn’t know exactly why he hadn’t been talking about Daniel to anyone, when his friends were bragging about every single cocky wink or suggestive look they were constantly receiving.

_It’s no big deal. It’s just a date_ , he kept telling himself. If he wasn’t feeling it, he just had to say it, and that would be left to that. They both agreed on going out to some casual place. At first it was just supposed to be for a drink, but one thing leading to another, Jude’s stupid big mouth had suggested going for dinner instead. How did that happen? No idea. It just happened, and now he was starting to freak out.

The fact that Daniel always looked so calm and steady certainly helped Jude relax. They went to some Mexican restaurant Jude couldn’t remember the name of, which was not exactly romantic but it was more than fine for him. The night started well, given the level of stress Jude managed to place himself for the last couple of days. They had done the usual small talk, about life and college and classes, and Jude actually started to feel relaxed and even have some fun when the conversation drifted onto more personal stuff.

“I was born in Texas,” Daniel said when Jude asked if he had lived in Los Angeles before college. “But technically I lived there, maybe, I don’t know, a year and a half? I’ve spent most of my childhood on the road with my parents.”

Jude took a sip from his drink. “What were they doing?”

“Free-lance photographers. They were travelling the world before I was born, but since they had no one to care for me in the meantime, they stayed in the country as long as I couldn’t take care of myself,” Daniel said. “What about you?”

Jude took a second before answering. “Born in LA. My mom died when I was a kid so my father shipped me off to Maine, in boarding school,” he replied, and he was being very careful not to sound too obviously resentful toward whatever his father had put him through since like, ever, because family messes were not appealing to anyone. “I got back over here for the end of high school.”

Daniel seemed interested, almost too interested, and Jude took a bite of his food to have something to do. “Why not finish in Maine?”

Jude cautiously searched for an explanation, all the while ignoring the fact that memories from his senior year were flooding back whenever he was reminded about that part of his life. “My stepmother wanted to have me near before college. My father was still very determined to see me graduate from Princeton, so hypothetically speaking, she wouldn’t have had me exactly nearby after that.”

Daniel quirked a brow with a laugh. “What happened to Princeton?”

And that’s when Jude’s brain gave up. In a heartbeat, everything he had been dutifully trying to avoid, every memory he had been pushing back and back, farther and farther, rushed again. A thousand boxes just opened all at once, unleashing every conversation he had, thought he carried, and Jude couldn’t help it when his eyes fell on his plate. Zero smiling at him, Zero touching him, Zero telling him he loved him. Zero, Zero, _Zero_. That’s what had happened to Princeton. That’s what happened to him. But Zero wasn’t a stupid life-sentence. Jude didn’t have to carry the weight of _his_ stupid, asshole behavior. He didn’t have to stay miserable because Zero once acted like a fucking douchebag and screwed everything up, starting with himself. If the asshole in this relationship got to move on, that surely meant he was more than free to do so. And right now, answering Daniel’s fucking question seemed about to be the easiest way to move the fuck on.

“I prefer the West Coast,” Jude eventually croaked out.

After that, Jude forced his brain to remain entirely focused on Daniel, and he tried his best to avoid any thought that could somehow lead to him to ask himself why the hell it was _so hard_ in the first place. They talked about Daniel’s short-lived career as a waiter three years ago, when his boss had suddenly discovered that he was, surprisingly enough, a hundred times less clumsy with bottles than he was with plates.

“I didn’t know yet what I wanted to do after high school. So I just took a break before starting off college,” Daniel confessed.

After that he had been working for a year at the same place before moving on in a club for a year and a half prior his first year in college. Daniel was answering one of Jude’s questions about the pros and cons of working in a club when suddenly, Jude’s eyes glanced over the car waiting in the street nearby the restaurant. He couldn’t prevent his brain from doing the math. Game night. It was game night. Jude remembered that Zero was always grabbing a burger after game night, either right after if it was an early game, or at 2 in the morning and a casual appearance at an after party if it was a late one. It was still early which meant… that he should not be thinking about him right now. For all he knew the car was probably not even Zero’s, their table wasn’t exactly _close_ to the window and maybe he was…

“Jude? Is everything okay?” Daniel inquired.

Jude blinked a couple of times and felt the red creep up to his cheeks in the most embarrassing way. “Sure,” he smiled nonetheless. He should really work on his lying skills if he was hoping to be a decent lawyer someday.

*

“What are you doing here?” Raquel asked when she spotted him in her living room, after she got back from dropping Miguel off at daycare.

Not that he usually knew Raquel’s whereabouts, but Kyle had just told him so a few minutes ago.

Zero shrugged from the couch where he was sitting. “Waiting for Kyle. She’s in the shower.” They were supposed to grab something for breakfast downtown.

Raquel made a sound Zero couldn’t quite decipher, and she put her purse on the side of the couch. She started collecting the papers and notes she had left on the coffee table without paying any more attention to Zero, as if he had been one more voluminous cushion. After a few minutes of silence, it had become clear that she was not going to give in and just make the usual small talk social conventions were requesting. Not that Zero liked these kinds of stupid empty chats, but the fact that she wasn’t even trying made him deeply uncomfortable and he hated that.

“If you don’t want me here, I can wait outside,” Zero pointed out dryly after a moment.

Raquel raised an eyebrow in his direction then shrugged. “It’s Kyle’s flat too. If she wants you to stay, you can stay.”

Zero snorted. That was a hell of a mean way to feel welcome. He knew that Raquel was far from being his number one fan these days but she didn’t need to make it so obvious either. “Not when I know the other person in the flat wants to murder me with a kitchen knife.”

“Don’t be dramatic. Kyle would be pissed at me if I did,” Raquel sneered, gathering her highlighters and bracing her premed books.

Zero rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. “So you _do_ want to murder me with a kitchen knife.”

“Did you seriously expect me to react any differently?” she eventually sighed. “In case you forgot _I was there_ the night you decided to make my best friend miserable.”

Zero’s jaws clenched but he forced himself to remain calm. “Don't put everything on me; he's the one who asked for a break.”

Raquel turned to him, dropping the books with a loud sound on the kitchen countertop. “Of course he did! After the way you treated him, you expected what, exactly? That he'd just forgive you and bow his head and be the obedient wifey?”

Zero couldn’t help a wince. Never, in a million years, had he wanted Jude to be obedient to him. That’s precisely what he had been dreading for years, that it would somehow turn out this way, but how could he explain to fucking _Raquel_ when all she wanted to hear about was her best friend’s side of things?

“That's not fair, you all know I'm struggling to trust people-,” he snapped back, standing up.

Raquel interrupted him, raising her hand as she cut him off. “It doesn't make your reaction any more _valid_ , you knew perfectly well that Jude wouldn't do anything to hurt you, for fuck’s sake!”

“You don't think I know I screwed up? You don't think I’ve been completely miserable too, knowing I had _hurt him_?”

“Well, let me tell you, you've got a weird way of showing it,” she sneered, crossing her arms. “If you had any feelings left for him, you'd not be giving people a reason to think that Jude was just your gay phase by screwing half the female student body on campus.”

Zero felt a burning inside of his chest and he looked away, at loss of words.

“Have you _ever_ imagined how hurtful it was for him, to hear how everybody brags about the fact that you were just with him to have some fun and taste life?” Raquel said again, looking not even remotely done with him.

Zero scoffed. “Everybody can go screw themselves because it had never been about experiencing life with him, and you _know_ that. I loved him, okay? But now he hates me to no end, because goddamn Zero always finds a way to screw everything up, and you’re one of those people who keeps throwing my mistakes in my face as if I didn’t know them already!”

“Heck yeah I am!”, Raquel bit back. “Jelena is not here, and trust me, you've got some _serious_ _luck_ that she's not because I might not be sugar-coating this to protect your poor little heart, but let me tell you she'd do _a lot worse_ to your bleach blond ass than speaking the hard truth the way I am!”

“You know what? I’m not fucking forced to deal with you,” Zero let out as he was striding out of the flat without looking back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for the feedbacks and the comments <3

_Fucking shoulder_. _Fucking rain._

It didn’t rain often in Los Angeles. But when it did, it poured. It started with a loud clap of thunder that no one had been really expecting, right at the end of practice. The sound even managed to echo in the crowded locker room, past the conversations and the sound of the showers, startling the players. By the time Zero reached his car, he was shower-wet all over again from the water pouring from above.

His fingers drumming on the steering wheel, he was waiting for a traffic light when his eyes wandered to the empty sidewalk. Well, not that empty, apparently. A man was walking, his head slightly ducked between his shoulders. Zero’s heart skipped a beat. His brain was just messing with him. That was _not_ Jude. It was impossible to tell for sure anyway, with the rain pouring and his wet hair and his jacket and… _oh fuck,_ who was he kidding, of course it was him. He could try all he wanted to pretend he couldn’t recognize his ex-boyfriend from ten feet away in the middle of a shitty thunderstorm, but his brain was having none of it.

Jude was probably heading back to Campus, the _opposite_ direction of Zero’s destination. The traffic light went green and he _did_ focus his attention back on the road before him, but after only a second, hands gripping the steering wheel, he lowered the passenger’s side window as Jude was about to pass by.

Until the very last moment, Zero didn’t know if he would be able to speak at all, it kinda surprised him when he eventually did. “Hey!” he shouted to be heard through the sound of the pouring rain. Jude seemed to startle on the sidewalk. “Get in the car,” he added with a movement of his head.

There was a moment where Jude looked too surprised to answer, but he just started to walk again without a glance back.

_What the hell?_

Perhaps he didn’t hear him. Perhaps he didn’t… Oh hell, of course he had heard him. And even if he had not, he would have _recognized_ him. Something equally sad and angry flourished somewhere in his gut, and his jaws clenched.

Zero leaned even more, his chest practically resting on the steering wheel by now. “Are you done ignoring me? Get in the car!” Seriously what was Jude trying to prove, exactly?

After a moment, Jude stopped walking and turned his head towards him. “Just leave me alone, I’m _fine_ ,” he snapped back.

Just at that moment, another clap of thunder echoed, not so far away. “Jude it’s the fucking end of the world, just get the fuck in the car already,” Zero shouted, now frankly pissed.

But apparently, Jude was determined to behave like a fucking seven-year-old who didn’t want to listen to Mama when she would tell him to wear a stupid sweater. As his ex-boyfriend started once more to walk away, Zero shook his head in annoyance. “ _Fine,_ have it your fucking way! If you wanna die, that’s your problem,” he yelled again, but with the pouring rain and the thunder echoing every now and then, he wasn’t even sure Jude could hear him.

Zero focused on the road and drove for a couple of seconds, the passenger’s window closing slowly. He had just gone past the traffic light when he stopped the car once more. With an annoyed smack on the steering wheel, he engaged the reverse gear until he reached Jude. At least the street was empty, he thought dryly.

He lowered the passenger’s window again. “Jude, I mean it, don’t force me to get your ass in this car myself; ‘cause you know _I will_!” Zero threatened angrily. He gave Jude exactly two seconds before he reached for his seatbelt. “Okay, fine, you asked for-”

Zero hadn’t the time to say the last word before he heard the noise of the passenger’s door opening, slightly surprising him. Without a word, Jude climbed in and closed the door with much more harshness than needed. God he was wet to the bones, Zero thought. Honestly, what point was he trying to make? That he didn’t need him? Thanks but Zero registered that a few months ago now.

There was a brief moment where the only sound was the pouring rain crashing against the car’s exterior, then Zero found his focus and started to drive again. The traffic light had gone red again in the meantime, and the car stopped patiently.

“I was going back to the Campus,” Jude said, almost accusingly.

Zero rolled his eyes again. What, he thought he was going to kidnap him or something? “Yeah, I know, and probably get pneumonia in the process,” Zero replied. “I worry too much about your fucking health to let you freeze to death in the rain,” he mumbled again.

“Don’t do that.”

Zero raised an eyebrow and turned his head towards him. “Do what?” he asked, genuinely wondering what it could be about.

“Bringing back messed up memories,” Jude said bitterly.

Zero sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t mean-”

“Of course not, because you never think twice before talking.”

Zero glared at him, frankly pissed. “Wow, hey, calm down, okay? I just gave you a hand because that’s what civilized people do. I didn’t do that to give you a reason to fucking yell at me, alright?”

Jude didn’t answer anything, at least not out loud. But the way his jaw was clenched, Zero could tell he had at least a hundred snarky comments laying underneath the surface right now.

He forced his attention back on the road and the stupid, pouring rain that looked like it would never end. Zero could see Jude running a hand through his dripping hair from the corner of his eyes. After a minute or two, when they eventually pulled into a street with much more traffic, Zero broke the silence.

“I don’t know how to behave. Okay? I just don’t know. If you want to ignore me, to pretend I never existed, fine, I won’t… _interfere_ again,” he said, struggling to find his words.

“Why, because you’re listening to what I have to say now?” Jude replied dryly. “That’s a serious upgrade of your server.”

Zero turned toward him. “Now, you’re the one who brings up messed up memories.”

Jude sneered. “How about we don’t talk at all, uh?”

Zero watched him carefully then focused his attention back on the car ahead of them. The traffic was slow, the rain kept pouring the entire time, and the atmosphere inside of the car felt like it had been poisoned by some gas that was now messing with Zero’s lungs. They slowly headed back to the Campus, in silence, and when Zero parked the car, Jude left without a word or a glance.

He _seriously_ needed to get rid of that fucking plaid shirt.

*

“I can literally hear those angry vibrations of yours over my music,” Tony sarcastically pointed out. He didn’t even turn back or drop his headphones one bit.

Jude wasn’t in the mood and he thought the way he slammed the door of the dorm would have somewhat given Tony a heads up about his _disposition_ right now, but apparently he was mistaken. His roommate eventually turned in his desk chair and gave him an interrogative glare as he proceeded to fully take in Jude’s appearance. He hadn’t magically found a way to get dried off between the parking lot and his dorm, so he was still mostly wet to the bone and frankly dripping, pretty much from head to toe.

Tony frowned. “What the hell happened to you? No one told you it wasn’t the right time to go out whenever this (he gestured towards the window and the pouring rain) is going on?”

Jude gave him a look and threw his wet jacket in the laundry basket. “I didn’t plan for this shit to happen,” he snapped bitterly, and he couldn’t even tell if he was talking about the fucking storm or the fact that he had been only _inches_ away from Zero for the first time in months. He grabbed a couple of clothes and headed in the bathroom. The rest of his clothes were discarded with the same amount of _delicacy_ as his jacket had been only a moment before – they were thrown in a corner of the room – before Jude stepped in the shower. He forced his brain not to think about anything in particular, closing his eyes as the hot water was rushing down in his body, but he was too angry to prevent his thoughts for swirling around all over again. This situation was fucking killing him.

_If you want to ignore me, to pretend I never existed…_

Zero’s words were just cutting him open like fucking daggers. Jude had known Zero had moved on, he had known it _for a while_ now, and he was even trying to do so himself. But as much as he would have wanted, no matter if it wasn’t the case, Jude knew he would never be able to pretend that Zero never existed, because whether he wanted it or not, Zero was the freaking happiest moments of his life. And now all he was suggesting was for Jude to stop thinking he existed at all? That none of this ever happened? Who was Zero trying to make feel better, Jude or himself? Part of Jude couldn’t stop himself from thinking that if Zero had suggested it, it was only because that’s what he was doing himself. And once again it was just proving how big the gap between the two of them had gotten.

Jude swallowed thickly and finished showering; trying to ignore the pain he was feeling in his chest as he was moving around. Even the slightest thing, even that stupid scar on his skin, right next to his sternum, was making him think of Zero and that was too much right now. All he could think about was his voice, the words flying out of his mouth. _If you want to ignore me. To pretend I never existed._

Well, he almost wished he could, now.

“I might take you up on that offer, for tonight,” Jude said when he stepped out of the bathroom, hair still damp and only his pants on. Tony had proposed (sarcastically but who cared) to him the day before to come with him and his girlfriend Bethany, since her fraternity was throwing a party that night. At first, Jude declined because _frat parties_ , well _not anymore_ , but right now, the prospect of booze was making it clearly appealing.

Tony quirked a brow and took his headphones off. “Jude Kinkade partying? Sounds interesting.”

Jude shrugged, unfazed. He had very little to prove to Tony, least of all other people, but he didn’t argue about it. “I need to get drunk.”

“I like this philosophy,” Tony said after barking a laugh.

*

Truth be told, Jude had quit the heavy drinking about two years ago, during the summer following their graduation from high school. Up until now, even with the beginning of college and the various frat parties he had attended during his freshman and sophomore years, he had managed, somehow, to stick to it. Sometimes he was tipsy, but well, who didn’t end up _at least_ tipsy at a frat party? The main reason why he had quit drinking was because it was constantly pissing Zero off. And that’s probably why Jude was in this very situation right now. Part of him couldn’t deny ( _wouldn’t_ ) that he had gotten drunk on purpose, not only to forget about him, but because he knew Zero would have been pissed off had he been there.

Jude didn’t really know what he felt first, whether it was the weight of Daniel’s arm lazily flung over him, the headache that almost made his eyeballs feel like they were going to melt, the chilly breeze coming from the window opened somewhere next to the bed, or the disastrous sensation that whatever he’d try to do, his stomach wouldn’t allow him. As he was slowly starting to emerge, memories of the night before started to come back. He had joined Tony and Betts at the party, which he had forgotten everything about, except that he was already well on the way to alcohol poisoning when he decided, after seeing at least five couples making out, that he deserved to have some fun as well. Jude didn’t remember much of the ‘fun’ he was supposed to have in the first place, all he knew right now was that he needed to get out of Daniel’s bedroom…

Preferably without having the awful ‘next morning’ embarrassing conversation. Jude had never done that before…casual sex. He had only kissed three people in his lifetime (and Raquel didn’t count, so only two actually), and never even had sex with anyone else but _Zero_. Jude knew it was stupid, that he was in college, a grown-up, that he wasn’t cheating on anyone since he was _single_ and thus that he had every right to enjoy casual sex with someone, but he still hadn’t moved an eyelid and he could already feel distinct mortification clawing its way in.

Fucking fuck, he hated that feeling so freaking much. The fact that his body was aching in all the right places – or rather, the _wrong_ places – was just the cherry on top.

He _needed_ to get out of here. Jude took a small breath, then a second, trying to gauge whether his stomach would make it to the door, and most importantly to him standing up. It would work. It _needed_ to work. He held his breath as he was pushing Daniel’s arm away from him, and froze when the other man let out a groan. No, apparently he was still dead to the world and Jude glanced around, searching for his clothes. Most of them, along with Daniel’s, were laying on the ground. Jude sat on the bed, double-checking his stomach, rubbed his face with his hand; then proceeded to stand up. When he rose up on his feet, he felt even dizzier than he thought, and closed his eyes for a second to stop the room from spinning around when he lowered to get his pair of boxers from the ground.

_Just hold on, Kinkade_. He felt slightly less ashamed now that he wasn’t completely naked anymore, but his head was still _joyfully_ pounding when he put the rest of his clothes back on as quickly as his stomach allowed.

“So, what should I deduce from last night?” Daniel’s voice startled him as he was half-way through buttoning his slacks.

A cold sweat traveled through Jude’s entire body. He knew it was only purely figuratively, because he wasn’t sure there was a fucking drop of water left in his entire body right now, but it did the job of making him feel even more awful than he already was. Jude swallowed thickly – again, nothing but hot air, his fucking throat was dry as a desert – before turning back. It was stupid, come on, he had to face the consequences. No matter how awkward and embarrassing they were.

“I don’t… really know,” Jude sheepishly admitted with a husky voice, and he forced himself to look Daniel in the eyes, because that’s what grown-ups did; or at least those who were not cowards.

He wanted to crawl into a fucking hole. Disappear from the face of the fucking Earth. He wished Kyle was here right now, she knew how to talk her way out of situations like this. He simply didn’t _know._

“Look, I wasn’t… in a great place last night. Emotionally speaking,” he confessed again, at loss of words. Suddenly it felt like his stomach was turned upside down and Jude distinctly realized that it was the last warning. “Can we- can we talk about it later?” he winced miserably.

_Preferably when I’m not risking throwing up in your bedroom._

“Jude-”, Daniel said.

“I’m sorry, I really- _really_ need to go right now,” Jude interrupted him, and he grabbed his jacket before almost running through the door.

*

He was somewhere between two throwing-up sessions in the afternoon when someone started to knock on his dorm’s bedroom, and Jude could swear he had been asleep less than ten minutes. _Don’t be Daniel_ , he prayed mentally. He knew he had acted the wrong way; that Daniel deserved to have a real answer, he _knew_ that, but right now he didn’t have the strength to go through that particular conversation.

“Jude, it’s me, are you there?”

Raquel. A sigh of relief escaped his lips. Jude considered not responding for a moment, but she kept knocking relentlessly, and he eventually got up before she started yelling. He hadn’t had the courage to look at himself in a mirror since the morning but he probably looked like a mess, judging by the surprised face his best friend made.

“Okay. Wow,” she simply said with raised eyebrows. There were two coffees in her hands and she handed both of them to him. “You definitely need those.”

Jude’s eyes narrowed. “Raquel, what are you doing here?”

The brunette eyed him warily. “We were supposed to meet for lunch. Remember?”

Oh shit. He had completely forgotten about her. Not to mention that just the thought of eating anything was starting to turn his stomach upside down all over again. Raquel eventually pressed the coffees against his chest until he took them, then she walked passed him to enter in the dorm. She threw her purse on his bed and proceeded to open the shutters wide open, making Jude wince at the sudden light flooding the bedroom. Jude closed the door behind him and placed the two coffees on the nightstand.

“How did you know I’d be here?” Jude asked as he dropped himself next to her on the bed.

She shrugged. “There were some interesting Insta stories about a particular party last night. I did the math. It’s been a while since I saw you like that though.”

_My brain agrees with you. My whole body does._

“I thought you were done doing that, drinking yourself into oblivion. You know, your health and all,” she pointed out calmly.

Jude pressed his lips together and closed his eyes for a moment. “Which part do you wanna hear first? The one where I’m still both pissed and desperately _not_ over my ex? Or the one where I dated a guy and ended up having drunk sex with him last night? Go ahead, take your pick.”

There was a pause as Raquel was silently dealing with all the extra-information. “Every time I cross paths with Zero it feels like I’m not myself afterwards. It just brings out the worst in me, and I’m just _tired_ ,” he said again.

Sometimes he was thinking he should get a transfer. Attend another university. One where he wouldn’t be thrown back to all the happy moments he had shared with a blond baller, whose face was now plastered everywhere on the Campus ever since he had become fucking Captain. Now, he’d have to deal with Daniel on top of things. Jude wasn’t so much of an asshole to put everything on Zero’s back. He was fully aware that Zero wasn’t the one who had thrown him in Daniel’s bed. But seeing him the other day, hearing talk and feeling his presence near… he just felt angry, so angry that he had been wanting to scream all the way back to the Campus. Truth was, all he wanted was to go back to the way things were. But he was all too aware that it couldn’t work, especially since Zero wasn’t willing to himself. Starting from now, what was left for him besides anger, bitterness and resentment?

Raquel slipped an arm under Jude’s and let out a loud sigh as she rested her head against his shoulder. “Do you like him? The new guy?” Raquel asked.

Jude gave it a thought. “I don’t know. I guess I could _come_ to like him, but that’s not how it’s supposed to be. And now I doubt Daniel will ever want to talk to me again after the way I left this morning.”

“If you don’t like him, at least not the way you’re supposed to, why did you date him then?”

Jude let out a sigh and leaned his head against the wall. “I don’t know. I just wanted something new to happen in my life, I guess. I’m a total jerk.”

“Okay well, maybe you were not the easiest guy to follow and maybe you acted kinda shitty. So what? I’m not gonna throw the first stone and I’m sure Daniel isn’t going to either,” Raquel said.

Jude hummed in response.

“I’m not sure I even want to actually _date_ someone,” he said after a moment. Raquel raised her head and looked up at him. “I mean, I dated Zero since high school and I almost ended up failing my first two years here. I shouldn’t be dating anyone at the moment. If I want to go through pre-law and law school, I need to focus and not end up in a situation where I drink myself to death to forget some… some basketball player.”

The room fell silent and Jude thought Raquel was going to argue about it, but after a moment she just nodded. “I think you’re right.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

“Lionel, honestly, give me one good reason for me to be here,” Jude sighed as he leaned back in the chair he had been sitting in for over half an hour in Lionel’s fancy office downtown.

His former stepmother/legal-guardian was considering a board with various shades of pink and teal samples pinned from lightest to darkest. “I need someone to help me choose the colors,” she said, waving at the board.

“Hence my question. Honestly, I’m almost colorblind when it comes to picking three different shades of pink, you know that,” Jude pointed out. “You’re the professional.”

Lionel turned towards him with a glare. “I’m gonna leave aside the sarcasm and take it as a compliment,” she retorted. “But you’ll not be so lucky next time.”

Jude snorted and shook his head. For the past two years, Lionel had made a good deed of her father’s request to work for his company in exchange for various… advantages. In short, Lionel was paid a ridiculously high salary to pick three colors a month and the right bedside table to fit with the headboard. The only difference between being Oscar Kinkade’s wife and being Reggie Hemsworth’s daughter was that the furniture she was picking and the renovations she was pushing for were not for her actual house.

Jude leaned over Lionel’s desk to pick up the project pictures that were on display. He studied them with a quirked brow for a second. “You’ve already decorated Gracie’s bedroom, why do you need to do it all over again?”

Like, he wasn’t even sure the paints actually had time to _dry_. Lionel waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t be stupid, I went with something awfully generic. I was in a rush and I don’t want my _daughter’s_ bedroom to look like it took me two days and a trip to Target to gather everything,” she sneered haughtily.

Honestly, he was just messing with her. Thing was, Lionel’s lawyer was supposed to give her a heads up since the beginning of the week, regarding the adoption finalization procedure, and it was Thursday already. It didn’t take a genius to understand that Lionel’s obsession with Gracie’s bedroom was just her way to think about something else. 

Jude smirked. “But that’s what happened.”

Her hand flew to her chest, as if she was repressing a physical pain. “Jude, don’t bring this up anymore, I can’t stand it,” she gasped.

Jude laughed and shook his head. “You’re insane.”

She shrugged, looking behind her shoulder before crossing her arms on her chest. “My insanity saved your ass more times than I can count, have some respect.”

He put the pictures back on the desk. “I love you, I’m sorry,” he chuckled, but he knew she wasn’t angry.

For another ten minutes, Lionel kept frowning at the board, grumbling things to herself as she was unpinning a color to put it next to another, then pinning it back before starting again with another two. Jude watched her in silence for a moment before he found the courage to talk.

He cleared his throat. “How would you feel about… I don’t know, having me back home?”

“What do you mean back home?” Lionel asked pensively, as she was taking a closer interest in two different color samples with a very concentrated frown. “You’re always welcome when you want to come, honey, there’s no need to ask for permission.”

Jude bit his lower lip. “I know that. What I mean is, how would you feel about having me back home permanently?”

Lionel turned towards him, her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You’re quitting?”

Jude rubbed the back of his neck nervously, before leaning forward to rest his elbows on his lap. “No. I was just thinking about living off-campus. I feel kind of out of place. I just… Yeah. I think maybe I could be better off somewhere else,” he admitted.

It was the first time he was saying it out loud and he was relieved, because it didn’t particularly sound ridiculous or dumb. Some people were not meant to live on campus, and history had just proven he was one of them.

Lionel was looking at him carefully, still standing on the side of her desk. “Is this because Zero is seeing someone else?”

“Seeing someone else? That’s cute. According to like, 300 different Insta stories, I’d say he’s seeing ten people at the time. I bet Allie hasn’t told you about that,” Jude drawled sarcastically.

“Jude, I asked you if it was okay,” Lionel said, and she was sounding rather embarrassed.

He sighed and looked somewhere else. “I know, it’s okay.”

The friendship between his stepmom and his ex-mother-in-law was, like, the least of his worries. Well, now, at least.  

Lionel walked around her desk and leaned against the table. “So it’s about him, right?”

Jude shrugged. “Not really. It’s mostly an… an _overall_ feeling,” he added, not sure how to explain himself.

To his surprise, Lionel simply hummed in response, and Jude was annoyed because he knew it meant she wasn’t buying it.

“Of course, if you don’t want me back, it’s okay,” he said again, only half-joking.

“I agree that you come home _only if_ you allow me to set you up with my cute male baby-sitter,” Lionel declared.

Jude cocked an eyebrow. “Since when do you even have a _male_ baby-sitter?” Last he heard, her baby-sitter was a 20-something girl called Kayla and there was very little in her appearance that left to wonder about her actual gender.

Lionel threw her hair back behind her shoulder. “I don’t have one, yet. But don’t underestimate me.”

Jude let out a sigh. “I’m fine being as single as I am, thank you.”

“If you say so,” she replied with a shrug. She stood up and went back to her color board. “Now help me choose this damn color.”

*

“Why did we even come here?”

“To be together,” Kyle retorted with a shrug.

“Why couldn’t we be together _inside_? Like, somewhere it’s not cold. Preferably without sand _everywhere_ ,” Zero groaned, clapping his hands together to get rid of the sand as he was speaking.

Kyle adjusted her sunglasses on her nose (which was stupid because there wasn’t that much sun either), then threw her head back. “It’s not cold, big baby.”

“It’s chilly,” Zero objected.

“We’re in November.”

“We live in Los Angeles. It’s never supposed to be chilly, even in November.”

Kyle turned her face to him and lowered her sunglasses to fire him a glare. “Will you stop complaining?”

Zero shrugged and leaned back on his elbows. They remained silent for a moment and he glanced at the ocean spread out in front of them. There were not many people at Venice Beach on Veterans Day, and it probably should have given Kyle a hint that perhaps they should go somewhere else if it was just a matter of _hanging out_.

“Let me guess, Raquel put a ‘no Zero’ sign on the door after all?” he inquired dryly.

Exactly ten days had passed since they had jumped down each other’s throats and they had not yet started to talk again. Zero wasn’t sure he wanted to, because at the end of the day, Raquel was still Team Kinkade all the way, and he was fully aware that she meant every single thing she said. Kyle had called him after he stormed out of their place, asking why the fuck he had to start WWIII in her living room when she was in the shower.

“No. She’s spending the day at her parents’.”

He hummed in response and looked at the ocean for a moment. Usually, Derek was there. Sometimes, before they clashed, there was Raquel too, mostly without Miguel, although she had brought him once or twice in the past. Depending on her schedule, Ahsha sometimes made the trip back to LA when she could clear several days in a row. And obviously, Jude, before they broke up. Now it was just Zero and Kyle, all over again.

“I blew up the gang, right?”

The words blurted out of his mouth before he even thought them through. Judging by the way Kyle turned her face to him and seemed to be studying him for a second behind her sunglasses, she probably wasn’t expecting that statement either.

She cautiously took them off and put them back on her head. “Or maybe it’s just life that gets to separate us,” she said.

Zero looked at the ocean. “If it wasn’t for me, Jude and Raquel would be there.”

Kyle sighed. “ _Maybe_ the way you dealt with things in the past affected the bond some of us used to have.”

“I blew up the gang.”

“You blew up the gang,” Kyle conceded.

Zero looked down, tracing something in the sand with his foot. “Why are you even still talking to me?” he asked.

She was sharing a flat with someone who couldn’t stand him. Life would get ten times easier for her if she wasn’t simply trying all the time to find a moment to spend with him, when his schedule was notably impossible to fit even fifteen minutes to sit down and eat. He, on the other hand, felt like the crappiest best friend in the world – he wasn’t even sure he deserved that title in the first place.

“You really want me to hit you?” Kyle snapped back, but then she saw he wasn’t kidding. “I’m talking with you because you’re my friend. Who cares if you make shitty decisions? Sometimes it happens.”

“I never really thought it’d go so fast,” Zero mumbled without looking at her. “One minute it’s all of us playing shit around that damn campfire and the next one…”

He gestured vaguely with his hand.

“I took three night shifts for next week because I’m pining for some customer at the bar,” Kyle suddenly said. “See how pathetic I can get when you’re not around?”

Zero started to laugh and he shook his head. “Eh, we were in the same boat, remember? You left.”

They had shared a few marketing courses before she dropped everything. Kyle nudged him. “We still are, blondie. We still are.”

*

The day had started wrong long before Jude even got sight of the person he had been actively avoiding for the past few days. He had forgotten to plug in his phone the night before, after coming back from a drink with Raquel and her older sister Adriana, leading him to oversleep and wake up well after he was supposed to. He then had been forced to run like a lunatic through the entire Campus for damage control, without having the time to even wake up or get some coffee.

By the time the class ended Jude was ready for this day to end already, and it was before he even set his eyes on Daniel. Jude knew this moment would come sooner or later. But he would have at least hoped to have some caffeine in his system to be able to deal with it.

He didn’t try to hide or run away, because that’d have been beyond ridiculous — and there were too many people near the exit to make it out quickly anyway.

Daniel slowly came down from one the upper rows, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Hi.”

Jude cleared his throat. “Hey.”

Daniel was still a step higher than him and it somewhat made Jude feel even more awkward. “I was waiting for your call. I still am,” Daniel said. Fuck he was probably upset, because his features looked really dark all of a sudden.

Jude pressed his lips together. “I know, I’m sorry, I needed time to… to process,” he mumbled quietly.

Daniel quirked a brow. “To process? Jude, I didn’t force you to do anything you didn’t want, or at least that’s… That’s what I thought. I mean, you’d have told me if that wasn’t what you wanted, right?”

Embarrassed, Jude shook his head. “That’s not the problem,” he said genuinely, but to be honest it wasn’t like he remembered anyway. “It’s just… I was… _biased_ when it happened.”

“Biased,” Daniel repeated.

Jude took breath. “I came across my ex-boyfriend earlier that day and I was upset, and I shouldn’t have drunk that much and I shouldn’t have put you in this position. I’m… I’m sorry, that’s not who I am, I don’t do that normally,” he said quickly, words flying out of his mouth. He hoped his sincerity would somewhat make up for the asshole behavior from the other day. “It’s not an excuse, I know but… No, the guy who has drunk sex like that, that’s not me.”

There was a silence. “Well, at least I have an explanation,” Daniel said dryly, and honestly Jude wanted to disappear. “Next time, don’t plan on dating a guy when you’re not over your ex, that’s just my little piece of advice. The rebound guy is just a myth.”

He pushed past Jude and started to head down the rest of the stairs. Other people had already disappeared and they were the only ones remaining in the empty room. “I _am_ over him. Getting angry at him and not being over him are two different things,” Jude tried as he turned on the spot to follow him with his eyes.

Daniel looked back and took a few steps backwards towards the exit. “When you say the wrong name in bed, no matter if you’re drunk or not… That just means you’re _not_ over him,” he simply said before walking out.

*

“Heyyy, look who I got here?”

Zero couldn’t help the fond smile on his face when he scooped up the seven-month-old baby boy in his arms as soon as he entered the house. Julian gave a bright giggle when he curled against the chest of his brother, and Zero closed the door behind him with a kick of his foot.

“Thank God you’re here,” their aunt Candace breathed deeply as she irrupted from the living room in the main entrance. “Don’t tell Al I had lost him, she’s going to kill me.”

Zero quirked a brow. “Should I be alarmed by the situation?”

Candace rolled her eyes, putting a strand of her hair back behind her ear. “Allie’s upstairs with Lottie and Laura. It’s not _my fault_ if this little squirrel over here seems to have a motor in his chubby legs,” she retorted, affectionately pinching Julian’s leg.

Zero couldn’t blame Candace, these days his little brother was crawling his way all around the house, when his twin sister Lottie was barely crawling at all. After a seven-week pregnancy that had ended with some kind of miscarriage and a thirteen-month break from even trying again, Allie had eventually given birth to the twins last February, three weeks away from Laura’s birthday and a little earlier than expected. Lottie was born first, and for their first few months, had been ahead of her twin brother; until, out of the blue, Julian suddenly caught up on her in those baby milestones, to the point where he had now frankly overtaken her.

“Will you stop comparing my kids to _racing engines_?” Allie protested, offended, whenever she caught wind of someone comparing the twins.

Three years ago, Zero would have been beyond stressed out by the perspective of spending Thanksgiving break with literally _anyone_ who called themselves his family, but now he was slowly, _slowly_ , starting to get used to it. Laura ran downstairs to greet her brother and soon Allie was there as well, with a freshly bathed and dressed up Lottie in her arms.

“Everybody I know is talking about that three point shot you managed to pull last second against Arkansas,” Samuel commented as he greeted him warmly.

“Yeah, they didn’t see that coming,” Zero laughed as he was handing Julian back to Candace.

Although her food was always clearly decent, Allie often referred to herself as a bad cook, and she seemed much too happy that the ‘twins’ mother’ free-ticket spared her from having to cook for six hours on Thanksgiving morning. Usually, that particular family dinner was taking place at Zero’s maternal grandparents’ place, but his grandmother, Connie, had decided that it’d be easier to order the food at the Hipwells’ so no need to travel with the twins.

The members of the Hipwell-Willwight family started to arrive. Robbie, his youngest uncle, had stopped dating ‘Tracy’ the summer following Zero’s graduation from high school (without ever bringing her into the family, though), and had finally introduced his new girlfriend, Shoshana, last summer.

“Hey Captain,” Robbie greeted him with a huge grin. Ever since he heard about Zero’s promotion in the Team, Zero couldn’t remember a single time where his uncle had actually called him by his name.

Connie and Richard Willwight, Zero’s grandparents, showed up shortly after, and the man eventually shelled out for a handshake, which was probably the reason why everybody should be expecting an abnormal amount of snow in California in the weeks to come. Once again, his oldest uncle, Benji, was missing; he had been deployed before Christmas last year and his return wasn’t expected yet. His third uncle, Aaron, was spending Thanksgiving with his wife’s family, and his last aunt, Celia, was the last one to arrive, after Samuel’s sister.

Basketball was pretty much the only subject of conversation during most of dinner, between Robbie, Samuel and Zero, going from NBA to NCAA to NBA again. Zero once again took a lot on himself not to show how much he was pissed when Robbie insisted that Curtis’ move during the first game of the season was deliberate, instead he just complied with a “oh well”, and took the first opportunity that presented itself to escape the subject — when Allie declared she was going to put the twins to bed for their nap.

It was the first time that day he found himself alone with Allie.

“You were not forced to tell everyone to keep silent about me. Or rather, Jude,” Zero said, forcing his tone to remain casual as he laid Julian down in the crib he was sharing with his twin sister.

Zero had long suspected that the strange silence around his personal life (and most notably the absence of one particular twenty-year-old brown-haired boy next to him for the last couple of months) had been imposed by his mother. The fact that she would seek the discretion of the family regarding his love life was one thing; but the fact that _Robbie_ and _Candace_ , whose mouths were bigger than Kyle’s at times, had resisted until now to enquire about it was one, _suspicious_ surprise.

Allie frowned. “How do you know I said anything to anyone?”

Zero snorted. “Have you seen Candace? Six months of this, she’s literally about to blow up.”

Allie sighed and shook her head. “I didn’t want to embarrass you. It’s not easy to be constantly reminded of someone you used to date. Much less when, you know, you are dating someone else.”

Zero was glancing down at his siblings, softly smiling at this habit of theirs to just curl around each other and sleep as if they were literally alone in the world, before he eventually connected the dots. “I’m not dating anyone.”

Allie quirked a brow and seemed embarrassed all of a sudden. “I just assumed that…”

Zero groaned. “Look, I know there were… _things_ that probably led you to think so,” fuck he really should have paid more attention to hide that goddamn hickey, he thought bitterly, “but it’s just… It’s nothing serious. Certainly not dating.”

“Ah,” Allie replied. “I guess I should probably mind my own business, huh?”

He shrugged. “No, I guess it’s okay for you to ask. I mean, you’re… you’re _entitled_ to ask. It doesn’t bother me that you care or that you… you _ask_ ,” Zero mumbled.

There was a short pause, and Zero looked somewhere else while Allie was dealing with what he had just said and was trying to keep her joy low-key. That’s generally how things were working between them, and so far it had worked mostly well. Halfway asleep, Lottie kicked her feet in the air and Allie suggested they should get out of here before the twins start fussing.

Lunch lasted well into the afternoon. At 4, Zero excused himself, since he had to come back to his dorm to pack his stuff for next morning. Thanksgiving or not, the Team was flying off for an away game in Kansas City and he didn’t have the courage to pack everything this morning, as he probably should have. He had just made it in his car when he realized he had forgotten to turn off the silent mode on his phone. No less than 5 missed phone calls from Cheryl Leibowitz, a girl he was sometimes seeing and who was living in the same residence as him, appeared on the screen when he unlocked it.

Zero shrugged it off and decided that it could wait for him to be back at his dorm. By the time he reached the parking lot nearby his housing residence, he had already forgotten about it and his attention had drifted back on the upcoming game in Kansas City, which probably explained why he was so surprised to find Cheryl waiting in person by the closed door of his dorm when he made it there.

“Hey?” he said, cocking an eyebrow. “What are you doing here?”

The housing building was completely empty, judging by the desert that was the parking lot, so it wasn’t that surprising to imagine that she’d be spending the day literally anywhere else but waiting by his door. He rattled his brain but as far as he knew, they had not planned to see each other.

“I tried to call you all day long,” she said, tugging a blond strand of her hair behind her ear.

“I was about to call you back,” Zero shrugged as he passed her to open the door of the dorm. “What’s up?”

“Well, if you’d listened to the messages I left you,” she sarcastically said as she entered the room behind him, “you’d know that you and I, we’ve got a hell of a problem right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, since i started working full time, it might be a little tricky to get all the following chapters published at the same rate, so it might slow down a bit (although i already have a couple more ready to be posted, so it might not affect for a while!)


	6. Chapter 6

Zero liked to think of himself as someone who would not freak out easily, and would do well when put under pressure. In both cases he was probably right; he was strong-willed and confident enough to know his own worth, and even though he tended to be a little antsier than usual when he had important games, he was doing mostly fine. Adrenaline, he knew how to deal with it. But there were some kinds of stress that he had apparently not yet mastered very well, and this one in particular seemed linked directly to the contents of his stomach.

He had been throwing up for about five minutes, everything in his body and even more, when he finally stood up to rinse his mouth. His own reflection in the mirror was making him to wonder whether it was just the shitty lighting of the bathroom or if he was really _that_ pale…probably a bit of both. And for the hundredth time, he wondered how fast everything had turned into a fucking disaster.

_I’m pregnant. Well, I think I am_.

And just like that, Zero’s world had started to spin out of control for good.

It wasn’t even ‘ _I’m pregnant. Well, I think I am_.’ anymore. All his brain was able to process over was the ‘ _I’m pregnant’_. She had done that fucking blood test, to find out what it was really about, but this stuff took 24 hours at best and so far it had been among the longest of his life. He had to call in sick for the Kansas game, because he couldn’t even stand still without wanting to rip the skin off of his face. He knew he wouldn’t be able to play, much less focus on his goddam teammates. Of course it wouldn’t be without consequences, especially since Morrison would probably jump to the conclusion that it was his shoulder again. But even without considering the most selfish aspect — he wanted to fucking find out about that stupid result as well —, he couldn’t just leave Cheryl like that.

But _24 hours_ … it was definitely more than his nerves could handle. Fuck, he thought he had always been fucking careful. He thought he had always done it the _right way_. But she had shown him the three tests she had, and two of them were positive. It couldn’t be happening. Not to him, not _right now_.

_What were you thinking, seriously?_

_That you could get laid by half the campus and not face the consequences sooner or later?!_

That voice sounded awfully like Jude’s and he wanted to fucking disappear from the face of the Earth. He had messed up. Once again he had messed up. He had thrown everything away and for what? For a casual fling? If she was pregnant… No one would forgive him. Allie would be pissed at him, his Grandfather would not miss the opportunity to say how much of a scumbag he was, Kyle would yell at him and Raquel would literally slit his throat open. And Jude…

Zero slowly let go of the edge of the sink and dropped himself on the ground, where he sat with his back against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. He was a fucking mess. He was a fucking mess since the beginning. He shouldn’t have tried his fucking luck over and over again. What if Cheryl decided to keep the baby? What would he fucking _do_?

_Calm down._

_There’s still a possibility._

_Wait for the results._

_Calm the fuck down_.

He tried to slow his heartbeat down, at the sound of Jude’s fucking voice, because that was his voice, that was _always_ his voice, the stupid voice he was hearing whenever he was in a crappy situation, whenever he had to calm down and think about something, _that was always Jude_ , and that’s why he didn’t want to think anything thoroughly through, because _it was always Jude_ he was hearing.

He took a couple of long breaths, inhaling and exhaling, when suddenly, someone knocked on a door somewhere..the dorm, probably. He didn’t move an eyelid and wasn’t planning to do so until he heard a familiar voice.

“Dude, I know you’re in there, and everybody’s wondering why. Open the door,” Derek said, still knocking.

Zero winced and hammered his own forehead with his fist. Can’t he just have ten fucking minutes _alone_?

“Zero fucking Waselewski, if you don’t open that door, I swear I’m gonna enter anyway, one way or a-fucking-nother,” Derek’s angry voice echoed again. “ _ZERO!_ ”

The blond baller let out a sigh and got up on his feet. With a little chance, he’d still be pale enough from his throwing up session to make his sickness believable. His friend almost stumbled over him when he opened the door.

“What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Kansas City right now!” Derek exclaimed as he strode in the dorm without being invited.

“I’m sick. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go back to sleep,” Zero replied.

Derek looked at him with a puzzled face. “Did you hurt your shoulder again?”

“I just caught a stupid something, I’m _fine_ , I just need to sleep this off,” Zero snapped back.

He evidently stepped out of the doorway to invite his friend to get out and potentially go fuck himself but Roman didn’t look like he was done. “Have you been drinking?” he asked after a moment.

Zero’s eyes widened and he felt deeply outraged. “What? No!”

It was one big miracle that Ted had had the idea to take his weekly share of fresh air that day because Zero would rather die than to have his insufferable roommate hear any piece of this.

“Then don’t give me that shit! You haven’t been benched for a fucking cold in all the years I’ve known you, you’re fighting with literally everyone you know, and now you’re calling in sick on game day? What the fuck is going on man?”

_I maybe got a girl pregnant. And I’m freaking out. And I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know how to stop it all and I’m tired and I don’t know what to do_. But he couldn’t possibly say any of this; his brain was just refusing to cooperate.

“Why do you even _care_?” Zero yelled instead. “I never asked you to get all twisted up for me, just fucking get off my back!”

Derek laughed bitterly. “You owe me one, man. In fact, not just, _one_. You owe me one for _each of the six goddam hours_ I was waiting for your stupid ass to wake up in the damn hospital last summer, and one for each person I didn’t tell, starting with your Coach and your mother!”

Zero’s heart skipped a beat and his eyes turned to ice. “We agreed we’d never talk about this again.”

Derek folded his muscular arms on his chest, glaring down at him. Zero felt like he was going to start throwing up again.

“You know what?” Derek said again, his tone bitter and dismissive as he angrily headed for the door. “I regret listening to your bullshit. I regret not talking about that to anyone, because maybe someone would have given you the fucking kick in the balls you deserve,” he snapped before striding out, slamming the door behind him.

Zero helplessly stared at the door long after his best friend had walked out.

_He’s right. You’re a mess. You’re a fucking mess_ , a voice insidiously whispered in his head. But he had never meant for anything like this to happen. Last summer, or his shoulder, or Cheryl, he had not sought out any of this. Maybe it was his fault, but it didn’t mean he had done any of it _on purpose_. Nobody seemed to understand what it felt like, to be lost in the fucking midst, not knowing what would happen next because he just couldn’t think anything forward. It was like he had lost this ability. Now most of the things were happening and he was dealing with them afterwards.

The ringtone of his phone made him jump on the spot. It took him a second to process; then he rushed to his bed where he had left his phone.

“Hey,” he said, unsure, as he answered the call.

“ _I got the results_ ,” Cheryl said.

Zero pressed his lips together, his heartbeat rising up.

“ _Apparently it was a false positive_.”

The baller blinked a few times. False positive? Was that even a thing? He had heard about false negative, but how could there be a false _positive_? “What does that mean? You’re not pregnant?” he asked, mouth dry and a fucking knot laced with hope and denial in his stomach.

“ _I’m not_.”

Blood was pounding in his ears and he forced himself to swallow thickly. He might not have a big appetite, but he had been unable to eat anything for the past twenty-four hours and he was now frankly starting to hyperventilate. “How is that…? How is that even _possible_? Are you sure? I mean there were two positives.”

“ _The doc said that it had something to do with the timing and a molecule or something. He said he was 100% sure I’m not pregnant_.”

Zero felt the exact moment where his legs gave up under his weight, overcome with relief, and he was glad he was next to his bed because he didn’t know how he could explain an injury, if he had happened to fall from his stupid own height.

“Thank God… I mean, yeah, _thank_ _God_ ,” he blurted out.

Cheryl laughed on the other end of the line. “ _Sorry if I freaked you out_.”

Now that the fear of having fathered a child he had never planned had vanished, Zero could feel a lot more able to make small talk. “Guess you freaked out a big deal too.”

_“I did. Now, if you will excuse me, I gotta go get drunk_ ,” Cheryl said with a very decided tone.

Zero let out an incredulous laugh as she hung up, but soon the laugh ran dry in his throat. It sounded awfully strange in the silent dorm and even his smile dropped off his face as he was now taking the full situation in. It was almost like he could still hear Derek yelling at his ass. Zero laid down on his bed, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow. It was his fucking last chance. Perhaps not to make it all right, because he had screwed up pretty badly with a certain amount of people lately, but perhaps to stop messing around.

*

Jude was heading to the main entrance of the Sunset Village Building with the feeling that he had been thrown into a washer on spin cycle. _Exhausted_ was no longer a word he could use without feeling it had lost much of its meaning. Midterms were only a few days away; or rather, now he could count them in _hours_ , and this exact realization was generally what woke Jude up in a jolt right in the middle of the night, because _why not?_ The fact that he had dutifully attended every single one of his courses and that he had been more than focused on the lectures and various assignments was clearly _not_ sparing him any more stress. Actually it was about the opposite. Whenever he got a sight of the hundreds of pages of notes he had taken across the semester, he couldn’t help but feel discouraged beyond words.

Pretty much since Thanksgiving, he had been alternating working sessions in his dorm, in the study room and the library for over two weeks now. Whenever he had a single minute of free time, he was just this mess of a student all over again, drinking coffee after coffee while trying to remember basically all the knowledge of the goddam universe. The only merit of this situation and his level of stress was that he was too focused to even pay attention to whatever else was happening in the world at this time, which meant that for the first time in months, he was really, genuinely _not_ thinking about his ex-boyfriend, or about Daniel, or about anyone that wasn’t looking in any shape or form like one of his school books.

Everything went downhill that fine Wednesday afternoon, though. He had just made it to the library a couple of minutes earlier when he realized he had forgotten his phone in his dorm, and after a minute of internal struggle about whether or not he should go get it, he had eventually given in and headed back to his dorm in a record time. The elevator doors of his residence were slowly closing when an arm materialized out of nowhere, making Jude’s heart suddenly bounce in his chest and his eyes widen despite his best efforts. Zero entered in the cramped place and looked slightly surprised at the sight of his ex-boyfriend, but he quickly composed himself. The doors closed and the elevator started to go up for a second, until it suddenly stopped with a kick.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jude blurted after a minute of nothing, bitterly staring at the closed doors. He took a deep breath. “You got your phone?” Jude eventually asked, turning to Zero.

“I’m off-network on this part of the Campus,” Zero replied folding his arms as he leaned against the wall of the elevator.

Jude let out an exasperated sigh and turned towards the buttons, tapping several times on the emergency button.

“You look tense,” Zero pointed out unhelpfully.

“Yes, because I am tense,” Jude hissed. This was getting ridiculous. He had to calm the fuck down before doing anything he’d regret…like punching Zero. “Sorry,” he mumbled after a second.

They remained silent for a moment; Jude turned his back to Zero until he heard his ex-boyfriend move behind him. As he turned around, he was surprised to see that the baller had settled on the floor.

“What are you doing?” Jude sneered.

Zero shrugged. “I’m playing tonight. I’d rather not have to explain to my Coach why I got cramps from standing for an hour in a blocked elevator.”

Of course Jude knew there was a game that night, because this university wasn’t the type to play it low-key when they could just throw their college pride in everyone’s face. His lack of college pride came in large part from the massive charm offensive that Zero was the very face of, and which had contributed to making Jude associate the entire school as his ex-boyfriend’s kingdom.

Jude rolled his eyes. “We are _not_ going to stay here for an hour.”

“If you say so,” Zero said.

Something weirdly calm and quiet in Zero’s demeanor was just pissing Jude off more than he was already. “What are you even doing here anyway?”

_Going off to some sort of booty-call?_ Jude thought dryly.

“One of the players sprained his hand at practice. I was supposed to check on him before the game,” Zero replied evenly.

“Ah.”

Minutes went by and they went back to silent mode. Jude had no idea how long they had remained there when he started to feel all his weight playing hard on his calves. After a while, he simply gave up and sat flat on the ground.

Next to Zero.

The space was too small for them to sit any other way. Jude’s heart was pounding in his chest and he couldn’t find it in himself to ease the knot in his stomach. Something was about to happen. He could feel it, that stupid electricity in the air whenever they were together. It used to be thrilling and exciting, to distinctly feel this emotional link between them. Now it just gave him a headache. Something was about to happen and he hated that, he hated the mixed feelings flourishing in his gut, expectation filled with bitterness and apprehension.

_Don’t talk. Please. Just don’t._

“I miss you.”

There it was. Jude’s eyes fell shut for a moment as Zero’s voice, not much more than a whisper, echoed in the silent elevator. He couldn’t quite decipher if a weight had been lifted from his chest or the opposite.

“I miss us,” Zero pressed on. “I miss what we had, when it was just… when it was just you and me and your bedroom.”

Jude pressed his lips and forced himself to breathe through his nose. He kept his eyes looking straight in front of him, focusing them on his blurry reflection on the closed doors. “What do you want me to say, Zero?”

Zero gave it a thought before answering. “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “What I know is that I hurt you that night.  More than I hurt myself with the fucking table. And I wish you could forgive me for the things I said…and did.”

Jude let his head fall back against the wall behind them. He had been waiting, _expecting_ these apologies for months. But they never came. Not in the way they were supposed to come. It was always wrapped with ‘you’re just as responsible for this as I am’ untold accusations.

“It’s not about… It’s not about _forgiving_ you, or not for that matter. It’s just that… I had done nothing wrong, Zero. You blamed me for that, for Jas. You just let your insecurities get the best of you. And these past few months, _I_ had to stand by and see you with practically every girl in this school. I had to listen to dozens of people talking about who you were doing at the moment. And I can’t just _forget_ about everything.”

For better or for worse, the last six months _did_ happen. Maybe it’d look like nothing in a couple of years, maybe it wasn’t even much in the end. But it happened.

“Anything was better than being alone,” Zero replied quietly, looking down. “I know it’s not an excuse, and I know it probably makes me look even more like an asshole. But when you left, it was just me, all over again, and I realized that nothing would ever be the same. I realized that if you came back…”

“I was gone _three months_ , why are you all so obsessed with me leaving _forever_?” Jude hissed, and suddenly, yes, suddenly he was looking at Zero, and Zero was looking at him, and there was some kind of sadness in his blue eyes.

“Because three months… it’s a lifetime, Jude. You were gone to the other side of the world and I thought I was going to have to live without you, because that’s what I had asked for.”

That’s what they both had asked for, to be honest, but Jude wasn’t going to complain for the one time Zero was accepting responsibility for his own bad decisions in this situation. Jude just shook his head with a sigh. “You can’t decide when you’re done with me and then when you want me back. That’s not how it works. At least that’s not how I want it to be. Not after six months of that shit.”

There was another silence and suddenly Zero tucked his legs against his chest. In Zero-language, that meant he wasn’t comfortable and was afraid. “A few weeks ago, a girl I was seeing told me she was pregnant.”

Jude had to scoff at this. “You got a girl pregnant? And you’re telling _me_ this?”

“No, I didn’t,” Zero said, shaking his head. “It was a false positive or something. But when we were waiting for the results, I just… I was completely freaking out. I didn’t know who I could talk to about it. All I wanted was to talk to you. Whenever I’m in pain, or whenever something happens, good or bad, big or small, I just… All I can think about is you. And truth is, I don’t want to think about anybody else.”

There was heavy pause. “I loved you like I never even _thought_ I’d love someone someday, and you just took it and threw it back at me. The damage is done. If three months is a lifetime, what does it mean for _six months_?” Jude said quietly.

Because, to him, it had felt like eternity. Last time, when Zero apologized, he had accepted to clear the record. He had accepted to see past Zero’s anger and Zero’s abandonment issues and Zero’s multiple insecurities. He had accepted to go back, without condition, without restriction, because after all he loved him so freaking much and who cared if at this moment it looked like a bad idea to keep this situation going, without really talking everything through? And then Zero found out he was leaving. And once again Jude was left wondering how much of these insecurities of his boyfriend’s he could just deal with before it screwed them up for good. And the answer was: no more.

“I’ll be living off-campus in January,” Jude said calmly without really knowing why. “Here, you’re everywhere. Not just those gigantic pictures with your face plastered all over. Wherever I go, there’s a memory of you. And at some point I’m just tired of it.”

And this was without even mentioning all the things he knew about him. That the scar on his abdomen was from the day his deadbeat of foster father cut him with scissors. That the one on his leg was from the day he had been doing motocross with his uncle Robbie two summers ago, right after Jude had told him ‘You shouldn’t try your luck’ and Zero had brazenly replied ‘Relax, babe, I got this’. He was also probably the only one who knew that Zero’s medical records didn’t mention even half of the broken ribs he had in the past; that Zero wasn’t eating nearly enough as he should, given his size and his busy schedule; that after midnight Zero was capable of falling asleep face front literally _anywhere_ ; that he always sneezed three times in a row; that Zero was allergic to peanut butter, that he hated birds and the prospect of ever facing a shark, that you should never leave either a box of Oreos or any other cookies anywhere near him and that he just _loved_ strawberry lollipops.

Jude had collected all these little things for two years, taking pride in the fact that he was the only one who knew about them, but now he simply wished he could forget it all. He didn’t want to think about Zero whenever he saw a fucking box of Oreos, or having to worry about Zero not taking care of himself the way he was supposed to.

Because he was his _ex-boyfriend_.

Zero wasn’t the cute blond baller he had started dating back in their senior year, he was no longer the same person who had cried his eyes out after his surgery. Now, he was just the guy who had waited to be in front of literally _everybody they knew_ to yell at his face that the only reason Jude was telling him to stop throwing fists at Jas was because he already knew what his dick tasted like.

The elevator seemed to shudder from below and Jude’s stomach jolted when it reached the floor he had asked for, a lifetime ago. He lifted himself up, and if he had any second thoughts on this conversation, if the blood was still pounding in his ears and his heart was beating too fast, he tried to ignore it and got out of the cramped place.

“It was a way out,” Zero’s voice echoed behind him. Jude stopped in his tracks but didn’t turn back. “When I broke up with you. When I told you it was over, when I told you I was mad at you for leaving. I wasn’t. Not really.”

The doors of the elevator started to close again, but since the familiar sound of the engine making its way up was nowhere to be heard, Jude assumed that Zero had blocked them open.

“It was my way of offering you a way out because I knew I had messed up and that we shouldn’t have made up so fast without talking things through. I didn’t know what else to do,” Zero said again, his voice going quieter and quieter. “I thought you deserved to know.”

Jude swallowed thickly. “Thanks,” he croaked out. And without turning back, he walked away, trying to ease the pain in his throat every single breath he was taking was making him feel.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Zero was a sore loser.

He had always been, and even if he always pretended that he’d work on it, he had absolutely no interest whatsoever in doing so. That’s what was making every game matter to him, and he firmly believed that it was important to take things at heart. However, things tended to become tricky when your team was winning, but not the way you _wanted it_ to win. Zero cared very little about having the privilege to make the last shot or not, or whether or not he was the one who was scoring the most — though he indeed was in the top 3. What he _cared_ about was that someone pretended to be the fucking _Messiah_ for pulling in a goddam winning three point shot when _he_ , Zero _,_ was the one who had, in no small part, been leading the game for two months now.

By the time he stepped out of the conference room after replaying the tape of the Game in Kansas City, Zero was literally livid. He wasn’t here for _one game,_ and suddenly everybody was fucking fawning on Curtis because that asshole had managed to pull in a three point shot by _chance_? People couldn’t be serious; Zero had rarely seen someone suck so much at long-distance shots in his _entire life_. If Curtis had only managed to get this one in the fucking hoop, it was only because there must have been some goddam constellation alignment somewhere in the fucking universe. There was _nothing_ to paw over.

“I can’t believe he’s taking credit for fucking _luck_ ,” Zero grumbled, sulking, as he walked in the corridor.

“You should have heard him in the locker room,” Molina commented unhelpfully, and Nando gave him a slap at the back of his head in the least discreet manner.

Alford hadn’t missed the opportunity to call him out as soon as he got sight of him. The fact that Zero hadn’t slept in two days and barely eaten at all had played in his favor and he looked like garbage enough to fit the illness he had made up. At least his mental breakdown was useful, he thought dryly. They were stepping out of the building into the chilly air of December. The boys were fussing behind him, Molina and Nando right on his tracks and talking about some Winter Break projects, but Zero wasn’t really paying attention.

He lifted an eyebrow when his gaze fell on a familiar face waiting outside. “Hi, Ness,” Zero said.

Nessa smiled at him, her hands shoved in the pockets of her coat. “Hi.”

They hadn’t talked in two months or so and Zero hadn’t particularly sought contact either, always blaming his busy schedule. He cleared his throat as the other guys were walking away. “I, uh, how’re you doing? I thought you’d be off for Winter Break.”

Nessa seemed rather embarrassed. “I, uh, I’m kind of waiting for someone.” She was looking at something above his shoulder, and Zero turned around to spot Gavin Parker, a sophomore who had just been added to the team in September, as he walked out of the building as well.

Zero blinked a couple of times and turned back to Nessa. He realized he should probably say something. “Oh. So, you two are, like, dating?”

“Yeah, we’ve been for a month now,” Nessa said.

“Ah. That’s… uh, that’s great,” he replied, clearing his throat again. “I’ll leave you two then.”

She held him back a second, reaching for his arm. “Zero, I…” His glance fell on her hand and she self-consciously let go of him, embarrassed. “You’re not mad at me right? I mean, I really wanted to be with someone, and you just never called back, so I assumed…”

It was Zero’s turn to be uncomfortable. “It’s fine Ness, really. I got a lot on my mind anyway, not sure I got any room left for somebody, like _anyone_ ,” he said just as Gavin was reaching them.

“Hi babe,” Gavin smiled, and he stepped closer from Nessa, unapologetically wrapping an arm around her waist.

Zero’s heart sank deep in his chest and it felt like a punch in the gut, to hear these two, simple words and to see this arm protectively wrapped this way.

_All-Star Game 2018_ , a voice whispered to his ear.

It was almost as if he could see Terrence’s house all over again, and hear Jude’s voice. _Babe? Doesn't sound like you._

Zero was brought back to reality by Nessa, who asked him if he was okay. He flashed his best confident-grin, trying not to pay attention to the fact that Parker seemed frankly pissed. “Yeah, sorry I gotta go. You two have fun.”

His fingers were firmly gripping at his shoulder strap on the way back to his residence, and he tried to avoid the thoughts from hitting him like a boomerang — knowing all too well it would work, for a time, then wash over him.

*

_“Okay, I’m going to need more context. What do you mean by ‘your sanity is hanging by a thread?’”_ Jelena asked as soon as Jude had closed his mouth long enough to take a breath.

It was around 6pm here in Los Angeles, and about 9pm on the East Coast, which probably explained Jelena’s oversized (and ever stylish, because she was Jelena) glasses and the grey sweater with _Duke_ plastered in blue letters she was wearing. Lionel being busy with the kids, Kyle sticking to Zero’s team because _of course_ and Raquel wanting to slit Zero’s throat open, he had no other option than to call Jelena to his rescue, and he was frankly wondering now why he hadn’t had this idea in the first place. She was sharp, clear-minded, down-to-earth.

_Exactly_ what he needed right now. 

“This whole situation with Zero drives me freaking nuts. I don’t know… I don’t know what to think anymore,” he confessed sheepishly.

Even through the screen of his computer, almost 3,000 miles away and Jelena’s glasses slightly reflecting some source of light in her bedroom at Duke, Jude could see that she was giving him a look. Not just a look, _her l_ ook: Judgmental and annoyed.

_“Last I heard you guys were not even talking, so either I’m lacking basic updates here – which is on you – or you’re definitely going bananas.”_

Jude sighed. “We saw each other _twice_ , so it’s not like you missed a lot,” he countered. “The first time we jumped at each other’s throat and the second time he told me he ‘missed us’ and he ‘missed me’ and all those stupid stuff that just made my stupid brain crash.”

Yeah. Crash was an appropriate term, given that he had barely gotten any sleep at all for the few days after.

_“And you’re upset because… you don’t love him anymore?”_

“No!” and he realized he had probably put too much emphasis on this and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I mean, no. I always thought… yeah, I always thought he had moved on. It was almost easier when I thought there would be no turning back.”

_“Because now you have the choice,”_ Jelena completed.

“Exactly. He always does that. It’s always my call. If things go right, if things go wrong,” Jude said. “It’s not what I want our relationship to be. Or rather, wanted _._ ”

_“Jude, if you still love him, and he still loves you, then what’s the matter?”_ Jelena sighed, and she looked like she was just trying to explain the easiest thing in the world to a kid.

“Because Zero broke up with me. Would you go back to the way things were with Terrence, even if you were given the chance?” Jude insisted.

She sneered _. “That’s surprisingly uncaring of you, but for your information, things were already not all pink and sugar between us when we landed here. As far as I know, you guys were doing just fine.”_

“Yes, until he publicly said I was cheating on him.”

_“There goes the problem,”_ Jelena mumbled.

“Of course, that’s the problem!”  Jude exclaimed. “If he doesn’t trust me, what’s left of us?”

_“Jude, come on. He trusts you more than anyone in this world. He just doesn’t trust himself. I’m pretty sure those dying products are damaging his brain.”_

Jude laughed bitterly. “So he’s having trusting issues and I’m the one who ends up blamed for everything?”

Jelena studied him for a moment. _“I don’t know what you’re expecting from me, Jude. Should I talk you into getting back with him or into forgetting him?”_

“I don’t know. If we get back together, doesn’t it make me a doormat?”

_“What Zero said – and did – was humiliating. You were right not to stand there and wait for things to fly by the window, you were right all along. But you guys have been twisting yourselves up for_ six months _based on something that_ never happened _. Is that how you want it to be?”_

“No,” Jude admitted quietly.

“ _Then I think you’ve got the answer you’re looking for_ ,” Jelena replied with a shrug.

Jude’s eyes fell on his keyboard. “Zero said he missed me. He never said he wanted us to be together again,” he mumbled sheepishly.

Jelena face palmed herself. “ _Jude. Do not force me to take a goddam plane to give you that well-placed kick I’m surprised no one has already given you both_ ,” she snapped before disconnecting the video call.

*

“Now, I really gotta ask, because even for you, it’s weird.”

Zero cracked an eye open (the one that wasn’t buried along with half of his face in his pillow). “What?” he groaned.

Ted, his pain in the ass of a roommate, was standing in front of his bed, arms crossed on his chest, glaring at him from behind his black-rimmed glasses. “You wake me up at 5:30am every damn morning. Every single day. Even on the weekends, I hear you shift in your bed at this exact hour, you get up to pee then you come back to sleep. Every single day, for the past year and a half. And now you’re _sleeping in_? On _game day?_ ”

“If you liked me, I’d think you’re worried about me,” Zero sarcastically said, closing his eyes again. He was only half-hoping that Ted would take it as the dismissal it was supposed to be, but he knew his roommate better than to expect it would work.

Ted sneered. “I just find it _irritating_ that you’re sleeping in. At least when you’re doing God knows what out in the open I have the dorm for myself.”

‘God knows what’ was his daily life, but Zero didn’t have the strength to argue about it. Roman was already not understanding how tiring his daily routine was, he wasn’t gonna ask for _Ted_ to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“What are you even still doing here anyway? Don’t you have somewhere else to be two days away from Christmas?” Zero deflected, still not moving.

Winter Break had started over a week ago and the population of UCLA had drastically reduced. Zero didn’t really mind staying behind — he didn’t have much of a choice, given that games and away games didn’t stop during schoolyear, even so close to Christmas as they were — because so far Ted usually left for holidays, and Zero didn’t have to put up with his obnoxious personality at all times of the day.

Ted rolled his eyes and turned to head for the door, grumbling a ‘ _whatever man_ ’ under his breath.

“I tried to make up with him,” Zero eventually said, eyes shut, as Ted’s hand was somewhere on the door handle.

“Who?” his roommate asked without even hiding his irritation.

Zero slowly fluttered his eyes open and rolled onto his back, trying to ease the lump in his throat. “Jude. He hasn’t called me back. And I don’t think he will now.”

There was silence then Ted moved back closer to his bed. “Well, that sucks.”

Zero snorted. “Don’t give me that shit. You don’t give a fuck about me.”

Ted shrugged. “I don’t. But for better or for worst, we’re in the same boat. And let me tell you, you were _a lot_ less annoying back in the days where Jude was around.”

Zero gestured vaguely. “Yeah, well, you can add your name to the list of those I’ve pissed off beyond repair. You can probably find it online by now.”

The corners of Ted’s mouth seemed to rise up, which was the closest thing to a smile Zero ever saw on his face. His roommate rested his hands on his hips. “Look, at least… yeah, at least you tried. Perhaps it won’t make up for the shit you’ve said about him and Velasco…”

“How the hell do you know about that?” Zero grunted, finally lifting himself up on an elbow.

Ted looked at him like he was the dumbest person in the world. “Everybody _knows_ about that. Like, I mean, _everybody_. Next time if you don’t plan on letting anyone know about your tantrums, don’t do it in the middle of the most attended party of the year.”

And now he was back at hating him again. The baller glared at him but Ted barely paid attention. “Point is, at least you apologized, dude. Which means for once in like, ever, you got your head out of your ass long enough to register you’d screwed up.”

Zero watched him for a second. “That’s _not_ comforting, but thanks for trying,” he sarcastically said.

Ted rolled his eyes and strode to the door of the dorm. “Why am I even talking with you?”

As Zero was dropping himself back face front in his pillow, Ted opened the door again a second only after stepping out. “I swear, you better be gone to whatever pre-game routine you have when I come back, because I’m not having the fucking entire Bruins Team in this dorm tonight, and I’m certainly not explaining to them why you’re acting like a fucking comatose patient.”

*

A two-point shot.

A _fucking_ two-point shot. That’s what had made the difference between the _fucking_ Oregon Ducks and _them_.

Zero was literally seething when he propelled himself through the doors of the locker room and stormed in the place. A gloomy atmosphere had taken over the room, and few of his teammates were starting to strip unceremoniously to head for the showers.

“What the hell was that?!” Zero started to shout as soon as he got sight of Ryder and Curtis, breaking the atmosphere. He strode towards his teammates like an angry bull and Molina had to physically step in to restrain Zero from jumping on them. “You had one _fucking_ job and it was to give the _fucking_ ball, you assholes!”

Zero’s outburst hit the locker room like a blast wave, the usual post-defeat dead silence replaced by a sudden uproar of ‘calm down man’, ‘hey guys’ and various comments he couldn’t actually hear.

Ryder glared at him. “I didn’t see you, Curtis was the nearest to me, I didn’t have a choice-”

“You wanna know what I think?” Zero growled, stepping into Curtis’ personal space. “I think you’re such a piece of shit that you decided to _fucking_ play your damn luck to be a fucking star!”

Curtis bared his teeth like he was about to bite. “You missed two easy passes, I don’t give a fuck about what you think.”

“ _Come again_?” Zero shouted, and as soon as he threw himself at Curtis, a sea of arms and hands grabbed both of their jerseys to stop them from tearing each other apart.

“WASELEWSKI. CURTIS,” a voice barked behind them.

Coach Alford, surrounded by Morrison and the two other assistant coaches were furiously glaring at them from the entrance. “How old are you, for Christ’s sake?!”

The locker room had recovered to a dead silence and Zero let Nando, Kors and Molina take him away from Curtis’ vicinity. He bitterly readjusted his jersey on his shoulders and forced his lips to remain pressed until it actually hurt. Alford said something about ‘coming to their senses’ and ‘get a full night’ and that everything should be discussed in the morning, with a voice filled with warnings.

Curtis’ fucking smug face got the best of Zero’s patience, and as soon as Alford and the Assistant Coaches left the room, the blond baller escaped from his teammates hands and stormed out behind them.

“So this is how it’s gonna be?!” Zero hissed as he followed them in the corridor. “Curtis keeps throwing everything away just to have his five seconds in the spotlight, and everybody finds that _okay_?”

Alford turned to him, annoyed. “Waselewski, you’re not in the NBA yet. There’s no fine to give on a crappy decision like that.”

“I want him benched!” Zero yelled, frustrated beyond words.

“Decisions regarding sanctions aren’t made post-game by pissed-off players,” Alford snapped back, and Zero felt like he had just received a slap across the face. “Am I being clear?”

His Coach didn’t even wait for his answer before he turned back and left him behind, with a sulking Morrison standing next to him. “What are you _thinking_?” the Assistant Coach hissed as soon as his superior was beyond hearing distance. “You might as well give Curtis a curtsy bow!”

“He fucked up everything!” Zero yelled, gesturing towards the locker room. “I need this year to work out for fuck’s sake, I can’t just let him screw everything up and wait for someone to give a shit!”

Morrison glared at him. “There’s not a three-point shot that could have made the difference.”

Zero’s eyes widened. “Of course it-”

“ _No_ ,” Morrison cut him off. “The game was tight, not because you played well but because you were fucking distracted. That’s what’s wrong with having one top-level three-point shooter rather than two average ones, you arrogant brat.”

Zero opened his mouth to react but the Assistant Coach didn’t let him. “Go take that damn shower and, little piece of advice, I better not hear about you smashing Curtis’ head tonight in some after-game-party because I might get _really_ upset.”

And with that he left. Zero didn’t even know how he found it in himself not to throw a fist in the first wall on his right. Head ducked between his shoulders, he headed to the locker room, angrily stripped off, then hit the shower, all the while avoiding the look of literally _anyone_ on Earth. When Nando asked him if he was okay and what had happened with Alford, Zero didn’t even answer; he got dressed, shoved his stuff inside of his bag, and strode out.

It took him a long walk across the Campus to finally start calming down — at least enough to grab his phone from his duffle bag and turn it on. There were a couple of messages, from friends and family. His uncles Robbie and Aaron, along with his stepdad Samuel, attended several games during the season, occasionally with other people (Allie, Candace, sometimes Celia, even his grandmother Connie once), but generally not all together, except for the Christmas Game. Zero knew his parents had been there, Candace and Robbie too, and judging by the messages he was receiving, his youngest uncle was just as pissed as he was, although he was visibly trying to make him feel better.

**SAMUEL.** Don’t give a damn, you’ve got a career, he doesn’t. If you wanna sleep at home, you can. XO.

Zero read the text a couple of times, and actually considered his stepdad’s proposition for a few seconds. Part of him wanted to be home, wherever that place was. It was freaking colder than usual, it was fucking December 23rd, it was dark, and now he was starting to regret not taking his car to get back to the dorm. He was halfway, and if he went back to his car, he’d just take it to his residence and wouldn’t have the courage to cross the town to go to his parents’.

**ZERO.** Don’t wanna slam the door and wake up the lil’ ones. See you tomorrow night.

By the time Zero made it to his dorm, it was midnight and he managed to have too much time to think and get pissed off all over again. He waltzed in bitterly, throwing his duffle bag in a corner and waking Ted up in the process.

“ _Fuck_ Zero! I get that you’re pissed, but that’s not a reason to give me a fucking heart attack,” Ted hissed, protecting his eyes as Zero turned on the lights.

“Sorry, next time I’ll try to plot the death of someone in fucking silence,” Zero snapped sarcastically while taking off his jacket.

Ted rolled his eyes and grumbled some death threats under his breath as Zero started kicking off his shoes before heading to the bathroom.

“Jude came by,” Ted said, as if he suddenly remembered it.

Zero froze in the doorframe of the bathroom, then turned back, every trace of anger fading out in a blink. “What?”

Ted sat up in his bed, putting his glasses on his nose. “Yeah, he was waiting by the door when I came back this afternoon… After you left.”

It wasn’t anger or frustration that started to make his heart beat faster now. “What do you mean he came? What did he say?” Zero stuttered.

Ted shrugged. “’don’t know, he didn’t tell me.”

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

A lot had happened in the last few years and Zero was often left to envision his life in many different scenarios. But in none of them had he pictured himself running like a lunatic through the entire Campus, past midnight on fucking December 23rd, with the overwhelming feeling that his entire life revolved around this one, particular moment. Not to be dramatic, of course.

_Be there. Just be there._

He kept repeating to himself, thoughts soon taking over his mouth, leaving him to mutter it as he was running the ten-minute distance that separated the two housing buildings. Zero just barely made it in time to sneak behind someone who had just entered before him; and because apparently he had become a masochist, he ignored the elevator and ran up the stairs. He was practically running out of air by the time he actually reached the fourth floor and the door of Jude’s room. He barely took the time to collect himself before he started knocking. Right now, his only concern was that he was out of Campus already. He didn’t even think that he had somehow bet too much on Jude’s simple gesture. When the door opened, and Jude was finally standing in the doorframe, wearing a sweater and his jeans — a combination he usually didn’t do, thanks to years spent with Lionel —, Zero couldn’t feel anything but relief and crushing hope.

Jude blinked a couple of times, as if he didn’t quite believe he had come. “Zero? Did you-did you _run_ to get here?”

“Ted told me you came by,” Zero stammered in a breath. “I’m sorry you waited, I… I had stuff to sort out with the Team.”

Jude seemed embarrassed. “No, it’s fine.” He shoved his hands in his jean pockets. “You know what? We’re not- let’s talk another day, the game was tough and I can give you a ride back or…”

“Talk about what?” Zero insisted.

A soft blush seemed to rise up to Jude’s cheeks and Zero felt his heart melt for good. “I wanted to apologize for, you know, the stuff I said last time. And… and the time before. I was tense and I shouldn’t have dismissed your feelings. I guess I just had a hard time believing you still felt something for me.”

“Everything I said was real, Jude,” Zero said, taking a step closer.

His breathing was finally returning to normal, if it could actually be called ‘normal’ whenever he was within touching distance of Jude. He swallowed thickly. “I’m not myself when you’re not around. These past few months, it was so _hard_ not to talk to you and see you. I could- I could barely wake up every morning. I just missed you. I still do.”

They were close, _so close_. If Jude wasn’t feeling the pull between them, he would simply not be standing so close to him. And worse was that it felt _right_. Having him so close felt so desperately right to him, so much so he wanted to reach for him and never let him go. He was so lost in his longing for Jude that he almost didn’t hear him when he spoke again.

“I miss you too. I did the entire time.”

Jude’s voice was quiet, and Zero had to take a second to register he had said anything at all. His eyes travelled up to Jude’s face in a split-second, but Zero couldn’t care less that it somewhat gave him away. He was ready to give everything, no matter how much of him it’d take, for Jude to believe he had been the only one he loved, ever since their eyes had locked in the Cafeteria, a lifetime ago.

“I don’t want us to stay like this forever for… for nothing,” Jude said again.

 _Not for nothing._ For something Zero thought was true, something Zero did, and something Zero said. That’s why they were here now, that’s why he was awkwardly trying to tell Jude that his entire body and soul were craving to be his boyfriend again, so much that it felt like a physical pain. 

“Anyway, let’s just- you’re not forced to do this right now, I mean, I’m sure people are waiting for you somewhere,” Jude said. His voice wasn’t accusing or bitter, rather the opposite. As if Jude had long dealt with the fact that Zero now belonged to a brand new range of people he didn’t know anything about.

His heart twitched in his chest. He didn’t know why, but it made him think about Nessa. Nessa, and Parker, and how miserable he had felt at the sight of them. Zero nervously bit his lower lip, feeling his heartbeat rise yet again when Jude’s eyes fell onto his mouth. “I don’t care about them. You’re the only one- you’re the only one I want to be with.”

Jude seemed to be giving it some thought, which felt like it made Zero lose five years of his life in the process, until the corners of Jude’s mouth twisted in a tight smile. “What if I’m the only one I want you to be with?”

 _There_. _There it was_. 

Be it the emotions of the night, or the days before, or the weeks or the _months_ , but he was _literally_ on the verge of crying right now. “I think it’s a problem only if we make one,” Zero said with a soft chuckle, tension lifting from his chest. “Would kissing you be enough to make it go away?”

Jude cocked an eyebrow, now clearly biting back a laugh. “I’m surprised you’re asking at all.”

Their eyes locked, but Zero was fucking paralyzed.

He just didn’t know if it was real, if his brain wasn’t just messing with him. He didn’t know anything anymore. What he was allowed to do, what he was allowed to _hope_ , and it seemed that Jude perceived his internal struggle. This time, just like the very first, it was him, Jude, the ever-insecure one, who reached for him, hands softly grabbing each side of Zero’s bomber jacket, drawing him close until their lips met. Zero’s body reacted immediately, muscle memory making his hands cup Jude’s face as they pressed their lips together, moving to a fucking tune only they seemed to be able to hear.

And suddenly, yes, it felt like everything was falling back into place. Zero’s world stopped spinning. The taste of Jude’s lips, his arms slowly wrapping around him as they were now pressed against each other, Jude’s scent, the way Zero’s hands seemed to be perfectly fitting around his face, it felt true and right like nothing had been ever since they had broken up. It was everything Zero had denied himself for the last few months, all too aware that only Jude was able to make him feel this way, just by a kiss, just by his very presence. When they parted for air, Zero wrapped his arms around Jude and held him as tight as he could, nuzzling his face in his neck.

It felt true, and right.

It felt like home.

*

Jude had already showered and was getting dressed when Zero shifted several times in the bed, like he was always doing before waking up. It was past 1:30AM when Jude had asked him if he was planning to go grab that ritual 2-AM-burger he usually had after disappointing games.

“Nah, I think I’m… uh, I think I should go back. Ted will already kick my ass for waking him up again,” Zero had mumbled.

“Or you could sleep here,” Jude had suggested.

And so they had settled in bed. It was innocent, without ulterior motive, and quite reminiscent of that first night they had spent side by side; when Zero showed up, all bruised and broken, and Jude had taken him in. When Jude inadvertently curled against Zero, at some point after they had lied down side by side — or at least, as much as the bed was allowing them —, he had almost been expecting Zero to jolt back. Instead, the baller was already half asleep and his arm seemed to find its way back around his waist, holding him as tight as he used to. Jude couldn’t remember a single night he had slept so well since they broke up, cheesy be damned. Zero sat up in the bed, rubbing his eyes while Jude was putting a sweater on.

“I didn’t notice you already packed up everything,” Zero said as he seemed to be considering the dorm differently from the night before.

“Yeah, I cancelled my contract after Thanksgiving break,” Jude replied.

He sat down next to Zero, who seemed lost in contemplation of the empty shelves and the empty desk. The pale-blue, almost white sheets contrasted with Zero’s tanned skin. _Summer boy_ , was all Jude could think about. He fit every description of this very Californian, western type of beauty people expected to find on this Coast. Jude didn’t have time to ease that stupid, fond smile on his face when Zero turned to him.

“There’s nothing I can say that will make you change your mind?” Zero asked, looking somewhat disappointed.

Jude rubbed the back of his neck. “I may have implied otherwise, but you were not the only reason I’m moving out. I’m living in the same town I’ve always lived, my family’s only a few miles away, and my best friends are living off-campus as well. I just never felt like… like my _entire world_ revolved around this school and the people living here. That takes most of the college experience away, to be honest.”

Zero hummed in response. “Going back at Lionel’s?”

Jude nodded. “Yup.”

There was silence and Zero ran a hand through his messy hair. “What do we do now?”

Jude gave it a thought then turned to him. They looked at each other for a moment before Jude leaned forward and pressed his lips to Zero’s. “This is what I want,” he said with a smile.

And he couldn’t be more sincere. All he wanted was there — Zero, his ruffled peroxided hair, his electric blue eyes, his chiseled cheekbones. Jude’s smile widened at the dopey-grin that rose up to Zero’s lips. It didn’t last long, because Zero was always prompt to wipe it away, and a second later, it was replaced by one of his cocky smirks. He then softly reached for him, pulling him down for a hug. As soon as Jude was lying down, Zero snuggled into his arms.

“I don’t want it to be weird,” Jude said quietly after a while.

Zero propped his right arm on Jude’s chest, resting his chin on his forearm. “Do you feel like it’s weird?”

God, his _eyes_. Jude couldn’t even believe how he could possibly have resisted all these months without staring at them. “No. Because right now, it’s just you and me,” Jude whispered.

A soft smile showed up on the baller’s face. He leaned forward to capture Jude’s lips, who was way too eager to oblige. “Maybe we could just take the time to figure everything out by ourselves before we make the big announcement, what do you think?”

Jude frowned slightly, lifting himself up against the headboard. “What do you mean ‘figure everything out’?”

Zero cocked an eyebrow and sat up again. “Well, I don’t know… Us. You, me… us _._ ”

“Just admit that you’ve got other people to ditch before we officially get back together,” he scoffed, kicking his legs off of the bed and standing up.

Zero looked at him in disbelief. “What? Come on, Jude, you’d really think I’d come to you if there was… If I wasn’t single?”

“Then why do you want us to act like we’re a damn secret, if you’re not concerned to tell other people that we got back together?” Jude insisted.

“Because Kyle will be _insufferable_!” Zero exclaimed.

Jude felt suddenly cold and warm at the same time, a strange feeling that had probably to do with the verbal slap in the face that had just blurted out of Zero’s mouth, and the freezing second where Jude realized he had messed up.

“Kyle…?” he stuttered weakly, his throat growing tighter as he faced a visibly annoyed Zero.

“Yes. Kyle _Diann_ Hart- _Finlay_ , all 5 foot 4 inches of of blond hair, juicy gossip and a _huge_ tendency towards ‘I told you so’s,” Zero kept going. “The same person who literally asked half of the girls when we were 15 to find out who the fuck was the girl I had lost my virginity to, and the same person who printed a fucking ten-page rant written by some psychology major just to prove to me that keeping one of your shirts after we broke up was pure self-harm!”

Jude opened his mouth and closed it several times without being able to form an actual word. He had kept one of his _shirts_? It would be very sweet if only this confession was not happening _after_ Jude had completely overreacted and almost jeopardized the little they had managed to build up the night before. Zero let out a loud sigh and ran a hand through his hair.

“Is this how it’s going to be now?” the baller asked. “You’ll always think I have other business going on?”

Jude chewed on his bottom lip then started to nervously roll the sleeve of his sweater between his fingers. “I don’t… I don’t really know what you’ve been up to. And I’m not asking you to make a goddam list or anything like that. I just… I’m jealous. And I can’t help it?”

Because he was feeling even more awkward, standing there in the middle of the room, he decided to sit down on the side of the bed. “I’m jealous of every single one of them, I just… I really _can’t_ help it. Those you’ve laid and those you’ve kissed, even those who were just standing too close to you…”

The lump in his throat seemed to get bigger and bigger as the words flew out of his mouth. He had been trying his best to keep it all to himself, because he thought he could handle it. Take Zero as he was now, not as he was three weeks ago when he was still very much single. It was unfair for him, after all. But now that everything came rushing back, and Jude’s heart was a _thousand_ percent devoted to loving Zero again, now that he had allowed himself to drown again in those old feelings, he didn’t know how he would manage not to care about the last six months.

His voice was almost a whisper by the time he started to talk again. “And now… Now I’m left wondering if every single girl I’ll be looking at wasn’t between my boyfriend’s sheets last week.”

His cheeks were burning and he hated himself for bringing this subject up here and now. The worst part was that he was doing exactly what Zero had done in the past, throwing a tantrum based on his jealousy and his possessiveness rather than actual facts. He didn’t realize he was waiting for something to happen, for a ‘what do we do now?’ or a ‘I don’t have time for your bullshit, Jude’; he didn’t realize that his heart was ready to be broken one more time, until he felt the mattress move beneath him, and Zero’s arms wrapping around his chest. The baller pressed himself against Jude’s back and nuzzled his face against his shoulder blades.

“The first time I ever met Velasco, you were in the shower and he entered the bathroom to tell you ‘someone’ was there to see you,” Zero whispered quietly. “That’s how everything starts. That’s how everybody gets hurt in the end. I’m not asking you to accept whatever I did in the past, like you have no right to say ‘it bothers me’. But I already screwed up everything once because I didn’t want to admit that I was freaking upset and that I was so jealous I could barely breathe.”

Jude’s hands reached for Zero’s and he intertwined their fingers. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know whether it was for Jas, for all the signs he had not seen, and all those he had turned a blind eye to, thinking there was, after all, no harm done, or if it was for the painful confession of his weakness. Maybe it was a more general apology.

Zero tightened his grip on Jude’s fingers. “You can tell me if you’re upset. Don’t bottle it all up. But I’m telling you here and now, it’s just you and me.”

Jude closed his eyes and leaned a little more in Zero’s arms. “You and me?”

Zero straightened slightly, and pressed a soft kiss against Jude’s temple. “Just the two of us.”

*

Zero would have lied if he said he wasn’t a _tiny bit_ worried when he parked his car a little more than a block away from the condo Lionel Davenport-Kinkade-Hemsworth (he had lost count) had established residence in over two years ago. He had left Jude around noon to come back to his parents’ house for the rest of the day. Ever since he had reunited with his birthmother, Allie was making a point to make him _like_ Christmas, which, up until now, had only succeeded to make Zero more and more skeptical about the whole supposed ‘winter wonderland’. Samuel joined him towards the end of the afternoon while he was replaying a few games from the beginning of the season — he hadn’t had much else to do; it wasn’t that often that his stepfather was granted an afternoon-off, but Samuel had just shrugged it off, arguing that it was merely more convenient for everybody. The offices of the law firm he was working for were getting ready to host one of those Christmas Eve parties his bosses threw every year.

To say that Allie was reluctant to go was an understatement.

“Come on, Allie, the kids will be fine with your parents,” Samuel sighed as they were about to depart and he was adjusting his tie.

She still looked, frankly, pissed. “What about _Zero_?”

Zero turned his head from the couch, where he was still sitting. “What about me?”

“Why don’t you just come with us?” Allie insisted, finishing putting her earrings on at the bottom of the stairs. She had already tried to send him off to his grandparents’ but it was a categorical _no_.

Zero’s eyes grew huge, before he barked a laugh. “Wait, what? _Me?_ Suit and tie? There? I don’t think so.”

“But you’re not going to spend the evening alone!”

Zero let out a heavy sigh and implored Samuel to help him. “Look, Al, Zero isn’t programmed to _like_ Christmas,” his stepdad intervened, Zero enthusiastically approving.

“Fine, then I’m not going,” Allie shrugged, and Zero knew she was only half-joking — assuming it had been a joke in the first place.

Samuel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Al, we left three kids under the age of 10 with your parents tonight, and you want to skip a Christmas Eve party for the only one of our kids who doesn’t actually _believe in Santa_?”

“Rather the only one who’s gonna be 21 next year, but Santa it is,” Zero grumbled from the couch, looking down at his phone.

That’s when, out of the blue, Jude’s text had arrived. Zero still had a hard time believing he wasn’t just dreaming, that the caller ID was neither an embarrassing error nor a fantasy on Zero’s part.

“I got plans for tonight, actually,” he blurted without thinking, making Allie and Samuel’s attention drift back on him.

“You said you had nothing planned,” Allie deadpanned, suspicious.

Zero offered his most innocent shrug. “It just arrived.” And seeing that his mother wasn’t buying it, he had the intelligence to wave his phone. It was simply chance that both Allie and Samuel were standing too far away to read anything on his screen, because that was absolutely _not_ the moment he wanted to break the news of Jude and his reunion.

With a little over-maternal interrogation (“Who’s that? Where are you going? Who’s calling literally _last minute_?”), and Samuel’s efforts to take Allie out before she changed her mind, they were off a couple of minutes later.

And now, here he was. Zero opted for the doorbell, like a civilized person, trying to ease his apprehension. Jude had not said whether Lionel would be there or not, and he hadn’t dared to ask. After all, Jude was supposed to be out of town tonight. Nothing said Lionel wouldn’t have skipped family dinner as well. Thing was, Zero didn’t know exactly what Jude had told his stepmom (well, _ex_ -stepmom) about him and their breakup. What if she was somehow against their reunion? The front door opened and Zero’s concerns flew out the window as soon as his eyes fell on Jude — his eyes, his smile, his hair, hell his _shoulders —_ Zero couldn’t even pinpoint what had him the most right now. He was wearing a plain white button up shirt, but he had casually rolled up the sleeves mid-forearms.

“Hi there,” Jude smiled, beaming.

Zero couldn’t contain his grin and entered when Jude stood out of the doorway. “I thought you were off with Lionel at her folks’?” Well, at least that’s what was planned until that morning.

Zero took a few steps into the living room, all shades of grey, white and soft green, feeling somewhat out of place until Jude came closer.

“I was supposed to,” Jude conceded, softly reaching for him.

Zero almost purred when his arms wrapped around his waist, and he claimed Jude’s lips. It was soft and warm, and Zero would probably have melted in the embrace if Jude had not parted so soon.

“Look, I know you don’t like Christmas and you don’t like gifts and all, but I want to show you something,” he said, his eyes sparkling from contained excitement. Before Zero could even say something, Jude took him by the hand towards the stairs.

“If this is some Santa kink, I think you should tell me first,” Zero teased as they reached the door leading to Jude’s bedroom.

Jude rolled his eyes, but his cheeks were definitely a little blushed and Zero decided to keep this information in a corner of his mind. “I’ll just pretend you never mentioned this.”

Zero chuckled as his boyfriend opened the door, and drew him in the barely lit room. He took a second to glance around before he started to frown slightly.

There was nothing more than Jude’s bedroom, except maybe for a few light garlands that his boyfriend’s stepmom had probably insisted on putting on the walls and the headboard of his bed.

“Okay? What am I supposed to see n…” Zero quirked a brow.

Then his mouth opened as he was hit by realization.

_Oh._

Zero turned to Jude, who was smiling, albeit a little sheepishly.

“You said you missed that,” Jude said. “You and me, and my bedroom.”

Zero felt his heart pound in his chest as he looked around. Lionel had played a lot with the curves and the colors back when they had moved into the duplex, and Jude was very much not the kind of person to grow attached to material things, or even places. To Jude, a room was a room and a house was a house. But over the last few years, Zero had started to feel entirely differently. The carpet, the drawer, even the lamp on the nightstand and the armchair, all the furniture belonging to the scenery of Jude’s bedroom back at his father’s mansion, had been taken out of the storage place they had probably been kept in for the past two years. 

Jude walked into his personal space, almost shyly. “I can’t make up for the change of settings — thanks Dad — but… It’s the closest to what we used to have, right?” Jude said, resting his chin on Zero’s shoulder. “And maybe… Yeah, maybe we’re not the same people we used to be in high school. But tonight we can just pretend all that shit never happened.”

 _I’m dying_ , Zero thought, at loss of words. _That’s it, I’m dying._ How the hell did Jude even have the time to do this? How the hell did he even find _people_ to get this stuff in here, on Christmas Eve? Instead of coming up with something insightful or remotely meaningful, Zero’s mouth simply opened long before he was able to talk, leaving him to look like a goldfish. With a soft, almost breathless chuckle, Zero reached for Jude’s face and cupped it. He was grateful that the lights were dimmed, and that the garlands didn’t do a decent job of lightning up the room. Even if Jude caught sight of his suspiciously bright eyes, he would deny it.

“I love you,” Zero whispered with a genuine smile, but even that seemed too little compared to his heart, which was far too big for his body right now. As if Jude’s simple gesture had made it grow ten times out of proportion. “I love you more than anything in the world, Jude Kinkade.”

Jude chuckled and wrapped his arms around his waist, resting his forehead against Zero’s. “Merry Christmas, stupid,” he whispered back.

Zero kissed the tip of his nose, then reached for his lips. The Kinkades’ Mansion had long held a special place in his heart, for he had genuinely thought that it was the house that was making him feel safe. But Jude was the one who brought him comfort, love and safety, the one who had taken him in repeatedly. It had been hard the past six months, Zero was feeling anxious and exposed without Jude. Maybe under other circumstances a therapist might have been helpful; but as Jude’s hands were leaving his sides to get rid of his jacket, then proceeded softly to tug at the hem of his shirt, nothing in the world could bring Zero to worry.

His boyfriend’s arm wrapped around his waist, the fabric of his button up soft against Zero’s naked skin. Zero stood on his tiptoes, without really knowing why because they were about the same height, his hands reaching out for Jude’s biceps.

At this moment, Zero decided he liked Christmas. 


	9. Chapter 9

 

_Can’t wait to see you_

_Gonna fill you so hard you’re gonna be stuffed for days_

Jude choked on his sip of water and sputtered some on his black button up, making everyone’s attention jump to him, and the conversations stopped around the table for a moment.

“S-Sorry,” he stuttered, coughing some more.

_Fuck_ , that will teach him to sneak his phone under the table during family reunions. Lionel’s parents, Reggie and Diandra Hemsworth, had established a zero tolerance policy about phones a few years ago, because of several awkward family reunions ending up with only Diandra sitting at the table while everyone was on their phones.

Jude reached for his napkin and uselessly dabbed on his shirt, just to avoid everyone’s suspicious gaze. His cheeks were bright red by now, and he waited a second or two before reaching for his phone under the table.

**JUDE:** YOU ASSHOLE

**JUDE:** I TOLD YOU

**ZERO:** You told me not to _embarrass_ you. I’m just giving you a heads up on the program 

**JUDE:** You filthy bastard

**ZERO:** Love you too J

Jude restrained an eye-roll and put his phone back in his pocket, focusing on his plate instead of the very graphic images Zero had managed to fill his brain with in one _simple_ text. Across the table, his stepmother had resumed her conversation with her sister, Kerry, after granting him an interrogative glare. Lionel’s sister had always been proud to be the skinny one, and now that she was five or six months into her pregnancy, Lionel couldn’t stop pointing at how ‘some curves looked good on her’ just to affectionately piss her off — well, Jude assumed it was affectionate, right? She was sitting next to her partner, and soon to be baby’s father, Nate; Jude had heard no more than two words from him in about a year and he just figured that Kerry was usually doing most of the talking, which didn’t seem to bother him.

Then came Andy — Andreas Reginald Hemsworth — Lionel and Kerry’s younger brother and the last of the Hemsworth siblings; brown eyes from his father, light-brown-hair from his mother, his father’s business skills but his mother’s quietness — in short, his sisters’ complete opposite. Even his personal life was a far cry from Kerry and Lionel’s agitated private life; at 34, he had been successfully married for ten years to his partner Ryan, after three months of dating, only a month after coming out to his family; and, to some extent, the whole west coast high society.

Ryan was… Well, in all fairness, Jude had tried for years to find a way to describe him with something that wasn’t ‘Lionel’s living nightmare’, because his stepmom had other people she hated _more_ than her brother-in-law, but Jude had yet to find another way to label their relationship. He could still remember Ryan’s comment on Lionel’s wedding dress, the day she had married his father (‘Don’t you think white is a little hypocritical?’), his sneers at Lionel’s supposed impending third-marriage discount, and the occasional ‘Oh, that’s nice to remember you have a family’ after she had finally started to come back to see her family on a regular basis.

On the other hand, it wasn’t like Lionel would miss a shot to bite back, generally with some sardonic comment on Ryan’s past as a biker —information that Andy should probably have kept to himself at the beginning of their marriage, because neither of his sisters were planning to let this die down any time soon.

Lionel’s prospective adoptive daughter Gracie had long left her seat, between Diandra and Lionel, to periodically sit on someone else’s lap. Jude had her for over half-an-hour after Lionel, but she seemed now well-settled on Ryan’s lap. Esteban, who was sitting next to Jude, had been focusing on his meal, deflecting the many attempts of Lionel’s parents at conversation, and the sweet Christmas atmosphere wasn’t nearly enough to crack his shell. Reggie didn’t look too upset, oddly enough, and Jude was sure he had a certain gleam in his eyes, as if he had given himself some kind of challenge to get a full sentence out of the kid.

It wasn’t long before Esteban started moping in front of his plate. “Can I leave the table?” he asked after a while.

Lionel gave him a look. “Esteban…”

“Dessert will be served in a minute,” Diandra said warmly.

Esteban shrugged. “I’m not really a sugar person,” he deadpanned.

There was a pause and Kerry and Ryan exchanged a look. Diandra seemed unsure. “Well, I suppose you can go in the living room then.”

The kid nodded and then slipped out of his seat. Neither Lionel nor Jude worried about it, since he had brought a few comics with him. Conversations resumed, and Jude contemplated for a moment checking on the ten texts he had probably received in the meantime, but Zero was enough of an asshole to have sent even more embarrassing shit and Jude rather wanted to avoid ending up with a boner during a damn Christmas family reunion if he could help it.

When dessert was brought to the table, Jude took a slice of chocolate cake and brought the plate in the living room. Esteban might like to think he was different from the other kids, but Jude knew he was exactly like most of them when it came to chocolate cake. Jude sat in one of the armchairs and put the plate down on the coffee table. Esteban looked up from his comic book after a second or two, then his glance fell on the slice of cake.

Jude bit back a smile. “It’s not poison, you know,” he said, pushing the plate a tiny bit closer.

“I said I don’t like sugar,” Esteban said without a spared glance.

Jude remained silent for a second then leaned against the backrest of the armchair with a quiet sigh. “I know it’s not always easy to adjust to new people. Trust me, I did that a lot in the past too.”

The kid finally granted him a look above his black-rimmed glasses. “Do what?”

Jude gestured from his chin towards the comic book between Esteban’s hands. “Bury myself in a book and pretend the world around me didn’t exist.”

Except that his way out wasn’t comic books but sci-fi for kids, then before long, sci-fi for adults. He always had those voluminous novels that made people look at him funny, like they seriously worried it was too much for him. Jude still recalled one of the women his father had dated, some ginger model, who had asked why he wasn’t picking books for his own age. It was the last girlfriend his dad had before Lionel, something like that; and although Jude was too young to fully realize that the ginger girl was at least fifteen years younger than his father, he just _knew_ there was some age gap, and the temptation was too big to resist a come-back on her remark. ‘Why don’t you choose men your own age?’ he had just bitten back with a shrug.

Maybe Esteban wasn’t _that_ wild, all things considered.

The kid watched him for a moment, and Jude couldn’t quite explain why he felt suddenly uncomfortable under his dark stare. “Where are your parents? Did Lionel adopt you too?”

Jude leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “My mom died when I was a kid, about your age. And my father… Well, Lionel was married to him for a couple of years, and when they divorced, she took me with her, because he didn’t want to have anything to do with me, I guess.”

“But why?” Esteban asked.

“He didn’t want me to like boys,” Jude said, and they remained silent for a moment before he cleared his throat. “Lionel’s nice, you know. She’s really doing her best for all of us. But of course, it doesn’t mean you have to forget your mom or anything like that.”

Esteban looked somewhere else, almost haughtily, and Jude was amazed to see on his still chubby features some expressions only grown-ups were supposed to have. “I know that. I just…”

His voice died down and his gaze fell distant.

“Esteban?” Jude asked softly.

“I feel like it’s just temporary,” he said again, not looking at Jude. “That it will be just Gracie and me all over again.”

“It won’t. Lionel will be there, and I’ll be there, and Diandra and Reggie, and Ryan and Andy, even Kerry and Nate. You’re not forced to call us a family just yet,” Jude said genuinely. “How about we start with being friends, uh?”

After a moment, Esteban snorted, and Jude was almost relieved to hear this instead of the doubts and distress that were filling his voice only a second before. “You’re too old to be my friend. That’d be weird.”

Jude laughed. “Hey, I’m either your friend or your brother. Your call.”

Esteban cocked an eyebrow then shrugged. “Fine. Friend.”

Jude snorted and stood up from the armchair, picking up the slice of cake from the coffee table.

“Wait,” Esteban said. Jude turned around on the spot. The kid avoided his eyes. “Can you… uh, can you leave it here?”

Jude bit back a smile and simply nodded, putting the plate back on the coffee table.

*

Zero took a deep breath then knocked on the front door, nervously waiting for an answer. He had thought about calling beforehand, but he knew that there was a chance that Roman would not even bother answering the damn phone. He also felt like this sort of thing, an _apology_ , needed to be done face-to-face; and it wasn’t like he could push it later again. It had been over a month since they had last talked — or rather, _fought_ — and this was the longest they had ever gone without talking for the past twelve years.

After a few seconds, the door opened, and the muscular body of Derek stood in the doorframe, arms folded. Shit, he wasn’t planning to make it easy for him. Granted, maybe that was deserved, Zero winced at himself. But _jeez_ , this couldn’t be harder than with Jude, right?

“What do you want?” Derek groaned.

“Come on, you know why I’m here,” Zero protested, but his friend’s face remained clearly unfazed. “I know I’ve been a mess lately, and a shitty bro…”

“And a shitty player. That Christmas game was terrible.”

Zero glared at him, momentarily forgetting about the apology. “Okay, maybe that wasn’t my best game, but I’m not at fault for everything.”

Derek rolled his eyes and huffed a groan. To Zero’s dismay, Roman was already taking a step back and was literally about to shut the damn front door in his _face_.

“Derek, wait,” Zero insisted, pushing the door back with his hand. “I’m sorry I behaved like an ass.”

Roman cocked an eyebrow, unimpressed. “That’s all I get for putting up with your shit for like, more than six months? Even when I wanted to slam your head in the wall?” he sneered.

Zero made a face. “What do you want from me?” he blurted out. “I said I was sorry! I can’t give you back those last six months, dude. I’m sorry. It’s the only thing I can give.”

“I want a ‘thank you’,” Derek said after moment, arms crossed all over again on his chest.

Zero frowned. “‘Thank you’? What for?” Oh shit, no, that didn’t sound good. “I mean- not that I don’t _want_ to say ‘thank you’,” he added hastily.

“You know what for,” Derek deadpanned, and Zero swallowed thickly.

_Oh_.

“We never talked about it,” his friend pursued. “All you said when you woke up was ‘Nobody must know about it.’ And I agreed because, I knew what your career meant to you, and I never meant to stand between you and your future. And you never said ‘thank you’ because, yes, we never brought it up again.”

Of course not, because Zero had become great at denial. And even more, it wasn’t just denial. Sometimes, denial was just so comforting and overwhelming that he just didn’t _remember_ at times. That’s how he had managed to deal with all the shit that had happened to him. That’s how he had managed to get through it all, and not to be broken around all the edges. That’s how Jude had managed to fix him, simply because thanks to denial, he was still _fixable_. Zero was having a hard time looking him in the eye, and instead, he let his glance fall to his shoes. “Thank you,” he simply, but genuinely, said.

He wasn’t too fond of tearing up in the middle of a hallway, especially in front of Roman. So he just kept it low-key, although he hoped that his friend would understand the full meaning. _Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for seeing past the mess I was even when we were 7. Thank you for challenging me. Thank you for putting up with my shit._

_Thank you for saving my life._

Derek sighed. “Fine, get your ass inside,” he grumbled, letting him in.

Relieved, Zero obliged.

“You know,” Derek said again as he was closing the door. “I’m not much into that supernatural shit, but I swear, you’ve got so many weird vibes emanating from you, at times it looks like I can see your fucking aura or something.”

Zero looked at him and huffed a laugh. “And what does it say right now?”

Derek shrugged. “Dunno. Just feels like there’s something different about you.”

The blond baller shoved his hands in pockets. “Aren’t you gonna ask?”

Derek eyed him. “Are you gonna tell?”

Zero gave it a thought. He didn’t want to lie to him as soon as they were on speaking terms again. But on the other hand, he had told Jude he wanted to take it slow before the big reveal. “In time,” he eventually said, and Derek gave him a ‘there you go’ look.

*

The last week of the year gave Jude the feeling of suddenly having an overactive social life — mostly because no one actually knew about his reconciliation with Zero, and so he couldn’t postpone meetings and so forth _all_ the time. The morning following Christmas, Jude had met with his boyfriend for breakfast downtown. (The daily routine of the ballers continued during Christmas break. But at least since they didn’t have classes to attend, the schedule was delayed to later in the day; allowing them to have some free time to finally sleep past the usual 5:30AM.)

Zero complained that he had not slept well because Jude had not replied to his ‘I love you’, and Jude, after dutifully pointing out that he was becoming cheesy beyond words, declared that it was his punishment for the dirty text.

“I know you liked it,” Zero grinned, not even bothering to feel guilty.

“That’s not the _issue_ ,” Jude deflected haughtily.

They separated around 10am, Zero going off to practice after a fifteen-minute make out session in his car. When he got back to Lionel’s, Jude was still on cloud nine and had to find various and creative ways to wipe off the stupid smile on his face and admittedly calm the fuck down whatever was happening in his pants. Lionel’s mood helped him to step out of his bubble though. Jude noticed that his ex-stepmom had been in a strange mood for a few days, maybe even sulking at times; his first guess was about the adoption finalization. Jude knew she would have been much more relaxed if she had been able to have everything wrapped up before Christmas. His second guess was that perhaps she was starting to feel lonely, after two days spent watching the bliss of her brother and sister’s private lives.

Two more days passed and the atmosphere remained unchanged. Jude was escaping every now and then to meet with Zero, but there were only so many excuses he could make up. The last pretext he had used was some after-Christmas party with Raquel and Kyle, telling Lionel that he would probably spend the night at his dorm. It was only _partially_ a lie, because he indeed was supposed to sleep there — although not alone —, but he was also taking the opportunity to empty his bedroom of some of his belongings.

“But you know what it will be like,” Zero pouted when Jude complained that he was running short on excuses. “Lionel will tell Allie, Allie will tell Candace, and Candace will tell Kyle. And Raquel will murder me.”

Jude still couldn’t help but find it funny to picture Zero’s aunt and Zero’s best friend teaming up. The two had met by accident (Zero insisted on that) during one game of the season and, _obviously_ , found that they were getting along pretty well — to Zero’s horror. On December 29th, Zero departed with the Bruins for their last game of the year, which was supposed to take place at the Gill Coliseum in Corvallis, Oregon. Jude took the opportunity to catch up with Raquel and Kyle, and the two girls helped him move out the last few things that still were scattered in his dorm room. Despite the fact that he would now be off-campus and thus farther away from Zero, Jude didn’t feel like he was regretting his choice… at least for now.

He had just gotten back to the duplex when a surprisingly ecstatic Lionel was apparently waiting for him. She literally ran into the main room as soon as he set foot inside. “Merry Christmas!” she yelled, and she handed him what looked like an… iPad?

Jude cocked an eyebrow. “Uh, Lionel, it’s nice but… you know I got, like, two of them?”

His stepmom rolled her eyes. “It’s not the _iPad_ , you dummy,” she snapped, and she threw the iPad in his hands.

Jude furrowed his brow and scrolled through the pictures on display. His throat grew tighter. “I-I don’t get it. What is that?” he asked, pointing at the screen.

Lionel had on her face one of the brightest smiles Jude had ever seen, which was even weirder given her mood the last few days. She clapped her hands together. “Your apartment.”

Jude was too dumbfounded to realize what the hell was happening. “But… When did you- Why would you- _My what?_ ”

Lionel rolled her eyes fondly. “You’re cute when you don’t get it.”

Jude braced enough of himself to give her a look. Lionel chuckled and finally took him by the arm to draw him away from the entrance. “I bought it for you after you told me you wanted to live off-campus. It was supposed to be ready for Christmas but there was a mess in the furniture delivery and it got delayed,” she grumbled, a gleam of resentment in her eyes.

The wheels in Jude’s head finally started to turn again. “So that’s why you’ve been _sulking_ for the last few days?”

Lionel pouted. “It was supposed to be a big surprise. And now they’ve ruined everything.”

Jude kept staring at the pictures as Lionel made him sit on the couch, unable to realize it was real, and not just one of those Pinterest things that look aesthetically pleasing but far too unattainable. “Lionel, it’s… it’s too much, oh my God,” he stammered.

Lionel pressed his forearm and made solid eye-contact with him. “Jude. I never touched the million I got from my divorce settlement with your father. This is the best way to spend this money. If your parents had been any different, you’d be in those ‘top ten wealthiest kids in the country’ lists Forbes likes to make up. But the fact that your dad is an asshole who deserves neither my love nor yours, it doesn’t mean you’re not every bit worthy of those millions.”

Jude felt a massive wave of love washing over him. “I don’t know what to say, Lionel.”

Lionel smirked. “How about ‘please Lionel, take me there!’?”

 


	10. Chapter 10

Many people would have probably been disappointed to be shipped off out of town for their birthday, but it wasn’t like Zero was ‘many people’. What bothered him most at the moment was that he was still in the honeymoon phase of his reconciliation with Jude and he desperately craved to be with his boyfriend 24 hours a day. On the other hand, the fact that nobody knew about it; that he and Raquel were still reenacting the Cold War, and that Kyle was kept busy by her crazy Christmas schedule as a waitress, he was positive that he wouldn’t have to threaten his best friend not to make him one of those surprise parties he hated from the bottom of his heart. But  yes, all in all, he was now 20.

Generally speaking, though, people didn’t get why it was _such_ a big deal for kids born at the end of the year to finally reach the same age as their friends; to be honest, Zero himself couldn’t really explain it either. They were still young and their age was just a number that did not mean very much until they turned 21. Zero simply didn’t like to be considered younger, even for eleven months. Younger was _cute_. It was inoffensive and slightly defenseless, all things he hated to be.

The two-hour flights to and from Oregon saw Zero try his best to avoid not just looking at Curtis, but _thinking_ about him as well. His tantrum at the end of the Christmas Game had brought literally nothing, and neither the asshole nor Ryder had been more than reprimanded for their behavior on Court. If Zero had not been desperately head over heels for Jude lately, he didn’t know how he could possibly pull himself together one more minute with Curtis and his smug face without starting a mess.

He was still moping about that whole situation by the time they finally landed in LAX around 9AM, and Zero couldn’t escape soon enough after Alford’s speech, to go find his boyfriend who was supposed to be waiting for him. A stupid smile lightened Zero’s face when he spotted Jude’s car. His boyfriend was apparently looking through his phone to kill time. Bag thrown on his shoulder, Zero quickly reached the car and knocked on the passenger’s side window before climbing in; chuckling at the way Jude startled. Before they even exchanged a “hello” or a “how are you”, Jude literally tossed his phone away and grabbed his face, pulling him closer until Zero was as close as the steering wheel allowed them to be.

The baller chuckled a little, but it was soon replaced by a satisfied moan escaping from the back of his throat when Jude licked into his mouth. The kiss turned into something passionate and needy and Zero couldn’t even bother to be ashamed of it; he was actually starting to consider whether it would be politically correct or not to drag his boyfriend to the backseat, strip him and have his way with him.

When the need for air forced them to eventually break the moment and pull apart, Zero smirked as he settled against the backrest of the passenger’s seat, slightly breathless. “I could get used to that.”

Jude raised an eyebrow, looking at him with insolence, and _fuck_ , that did so many things to Zero. “You’re settling for so little,” he grinned.

Zero huffed a laugh glancing up at Jude, whose eyes were still insistently staring at him. 

“Can I say it?” Jude asked. His voice sounded so ridiculously hopeful, like, no, it wasn't a goddamn kidney, Zero groaned to himself.

Zero rolled his eyes and pulled a face. “Oh come on, it’s not even relevant, that was yesterday!”

“But you were not here yesterday,” Jude retorted. “Please?”

The baller groaned. “Fine.”

“Birthday boy,” Jude grinned, beaming, and he reached for another kiss.

After they parted, Zero put his bag at his feet while Jude was starting the car and proceeded to get them out of the parking lot.  “How was the game?” Jude asked when they pulled into traffic.

Zero shrugged. “You saw the results.”

They managed to win 76-63. It wasn’t that bad, but it was still damage control for the Christmas Game.

Jude looked at him. “Yes. But I wanna know what _you_ thought about it.”

Zero pressed his lips together. “Fine, I guess. No one stabbed me in the back this time, so I guess I should be thankful or something.”

“Look at that huge ball of fluff, sunshine and flowers that is my boyfriend,” Jude snarled, and Zero gave him a look. With a chuckle, Jude took his right hand away from the steering wheel and held it out until Zero took it with a snort, resting their intertwined fingers on his lap for a while.

“Look, do you mind if I make a little detour?” Jude asked. He briefly looked at him, probably to gauge his expression, before hastily adding: “If you’re tired, just tell me and we will see about that another time.”

“Babe, it was a two-hour flight. I’m fine, we can do whatever,” Zero said with a shrug.

Jude nodded and the baller gave him his right hand back for the rest of the road. He watched by the window as the familiar streets passed by, starting to frown when he recognized the street Jude pulled in.

He snorted. “Jude, I’ve been avoiding Kyle just to make sure she doesn’t _smell you_ on me. Not sure the two of us coming right under her nose is the best way to keep us discreet.”

Jude parked the car next to the the sidewalk. “Well. I’m taking the risk,” he smirked.

Zero shook his head. “What are we doing here?”

Fuck, no, please not a stupid party or anything like that. He was fine with everything that included having people in his life, with social meetings and gatherings, parties and night-outs, he was fine with it _all_ , as long as it wasn’t his birthday. He didn’t know why, but this was one of the very few things that gave him social anxiety. Then he recalled it was 9 in the morning, and aside from a brunch, he couldn’t really picture a gathering at this hour — and even, like, a brunch? (How old were they, 70?) So he let his nervousness die down a little.

Jude leaned slightly forward, and Zero expected a kiss or something, but instead, his boyfriend just looked through the passenger window. He pointed at the third floor, more specifically at the window further on the right. “See that window on the right over here?”

Zero shrugged. “Yeah, that’s the girls’ living room.”

“Now, look two floors above.” Zero did as he was told, then looked back — and down  at Jude with a puzzled face, only to see that he now had his house keys in his hand. “Lionel bought me a flat.”

Zero’s mouth opened. “Oh, that’s- that’s _awesome_ , right?”

That meant… That meant no more intrusive roommate…. _Personal_ _space_ , quiet and tranquility. Sex whenever they wanted and not just when the stars were perfectly aligned for more than a quick fuck.

“It will be if you live with me,” Jude said bluntly.

Zero’s eyes widened and he swallowed. “Jude-”

“Listen to me, please,” Jude insisted, cutting him off, and Zero obliged, because he wasn’t even sure he could say anything right now. “I know it’s unexpected, and it’s been only, like, a week since we got back together, and that people don’t even know about us yet. I _know_ all of this. But I also know that I love you, and that you love me.” Zero was pleased that for once in forever, this simple fact coming from Jude’s mouth wasn’t a question. “Since we got to college, we let everybody convince us that they knew what was best for us, better than ourselves. They would have been right if we had been average teenage boys. But the thing is, we are anything _but_ average. We never were.” A soft chuckle, albeit nervous, escaped from Jude’s lips. “I mean, not all relationships start the way ours started; not all teenagers go through the stuff we dealt with in the past. Everybody forgot about that. And if there’s one thing the past year taught me… It’s that when it comes to you and me, to us… We should never trust anyone else but ourselves.”

Zero was glad he had not made a joke about Jude asking him to marry him before, because damn, he was good at declarations. And, well, it wasn’t like he would actually tell this to _anyone_ , really; but if Jude was ever to propose, well shit, he _so_ wanted one of those big speeches.

“So I’m asking you… Move in with me?”

A shiver went down Zero’s spine. God it felt so real, so _easy_. When everything for the past year had seemed so out of reach, so damn complicated. “Jude, I… I’d _love_ to but I can’t just leave my dorm behind,” Zero said with a sorry smile. The deadline for mid-year move-outs was far behind them, and there wouldn’t be one before next June.

“So what? I’m sure Ted won’t be bothered to have the dorm to himself,” Jude pointed out.

Clearly not, but that wasn’t the issue. Zero shook his head. “It’s not so easy, cowboy. If I can’t change my housing status till June, it means that my scholarship will still go primarily to the dorm.”

Jude shrugged. “If it doesn’t bother you to be a kept boyfriend for the next six months, well I’m fine with it.”

Zero rolled his eyes and nudged him. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you pay for everything. You’re supposed to be like, a future successful business lawyer. Don’t tell me you don’t know the cost of living in LA.”

“Yeah, well, about that…,” Jude started after clearing his throat and Zero looked at him, slightly concerned about the way the conversation had drifted from hella romantic to… well, the opposite, who’s-gonna-pay-the-bills talk. “Remember, that divorce settlement between Lionel and my dad?”

Zero nodded, slightly frowning. Forgetting about it was one thing, knowing what this was about was something else. Jude himself didn’t even know what had really happened in there, so Zero had not pushed much either. He had his boyfriend, the rest wasn’t that important in the end.

“Well, Lionel got me a million bucks out of it, and a million for herself. Let’s just say that her financial counselors made a few investments on both and, well, those two million bucks kinda made, like, _babies_.”

There was silence while Zero was processing the information. Okay, so retroactively it made Jude a millionaire. Now a fucking multimillionaire. At 20. Zero wondered if the fact that he was so turned on by this particular information made him a gold-digger.

“I’m not asking you to give me an answer _right now_ ,” Jude added after a moment. “We can just go in there, quickly check it out, and then you could just, like, think about it?”

Oh, hell, Jude could count on that.

*

Ted frowned deeply, looking right into Zero’s eyes as if he was smelling something particularly fishy. “You’re asking me _permission_?”

Zero sneered haughtily and crossed his arms on his chest. “I’m not asking you anything. I’m just _notifying_ you that I’ll be mostly crashing somewhere else from now on and I’d be grateful if you didn’t bitch about it.”

His roommate snorted and pushed his black-rimmed glasses back up on his nose. “Oh, so you’re finally getting back with Kinkade,” he stated bluntly, then smirked. “Crawling back on your knees worked, after all.”

Zero glared at him. “I don’t know where you’re getting this from, but you should ask for a refund.”

Okay, _why the hell_ did that keep happening? The first time, he was trying to bring up the issue of moving in with Jude with Allie and Samuel, and to some extent, also tell them they had made up. “Is it about the fact that you and Jude are back together?” Allie had asked innocently.

“H-How do you _know_?” Zero had stuttered.

Allie had glanced at him nonchalantly, but there was a sparkle of amusement in her blue eyes. “I wasn’t sure until now, actually. Lucky bet,” she had said with a shrug.

“Would you mind elaborating a little bit on that?” he had deadpanned.

She had given him a look. “Oh, please, you’re not as discreet as you like to think you are. Both of you. In complete honesty, I expected Lionel to grill Jude before you gave in, though.”

Once he stopped feeling like his private life was on display for everyone to enjoy, he had managed to croak out that he wanted to move in with his boyfriend; which expectedly met a thoughtful, and a tiny bit worried, look between his mother and his stepfather.

“Is this one of those decisions that young adults really, really want to take by themselves but ask for permission anyway, and both aforementioned young adults and their parents know that whatever they will say, the decision is already made?” Allie had enquired.

Zero had bitten his lower lip. “…Kinda?”

“I feel like I missed a couple of steps but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea,” Samuel had intervened.

Allie looked at her husband, and he shrugged. “Don’t look at me. We’re married; we have a contract, a house, and kids together. If Zero decides to hate me I have no leverage to make him love me again. I’ve got to pick his side.”

Zero rolled his eyes, because lawyer _yeah_ , but what a dork. Which brought him back to now, and Ted studying him with his biggest asshole-grin. He turned obnoxiously on his desk chair, stretching his legs before crossing his ankles. “ _Please_. Like I could forget the way you stormed out and practically threw your pride in the trash after I told you he came by,” he said as he mimicked the gesture of something waltzing. “Thanks a lot, by the way, it was _by far_ one of the best memories I got from you. Besides, you didn’t come back that night and since you haven’t been suicidal in like, two weeks, it means…”

“Just shut the fuck up!” Zero finally shouted, but it didn’t seem to even make that asshole startle.

Instead, Ted looked at him and shook his head. “How the hell could Kinkade live so long without you,” he sarcastically said, and Zero turned on the spot because like, _God_ someone give him fucking patience.

He didn’t even really _know_ why he was giving a heads-up to _Ted_. It wasn’t like they were friends. It wasn’t even like they usually gave each other notice of literally _anything_. Zero had his life and Ted had his life, and if someone had to sleep somewhere else, well, neither of them really cared anyway so it wasn’t even worth mentioning, right?

Except that Ted was still friends with that girl Zero had made out with like, a lifetime ago, and she still had an obvious crush on him; and Zero was practically _sure_ — well, no, he was 99% sure — that Ted had a crush on _her_. So yeah, given that his roommate was an ass, Zero was positive that he’d brag about Zero being off-market just because he was _that_ petty. And the last thing he needed at the moment was for rumors to spread like wildfire.

Zero bitterly looked somewhere else. “Look. I know you don’t like me. And I don’t care whether it changes or not. I just… I’m risking kind of a lot if people were to find out I’m sneaking off campus on a daily basis.”

Ted lifted an eyebrow. “Why would they give a damn?”

The baller rubbed his hands together. “I need to have my Coach’s and the Campus’ approval to live off-Campus. And, let’s just say that I’m not really in Alford’s good books these days.”

Ted snorted, which earned him a glare. “So you’re not asking permission. You’re asking for a _favor_.”

Jeez, he was running short on patience. “Take it however you want, I don’t care,” Zero eventually groaned before turning on his heels.

“I won’t brag, relax,” Ted eventually said. Zero turned to him, waiting for a ‘but’ or ‘in exchange I want…’, but instead, his roommate just shrugged. “As long as you’re not waking me up at 5.30AM every damn morning, as far as I’m concerned, you’re sleeping in this dorm every night.”

*

Jude’s eyes fell onto his vodka-something as he blamed whoever was monitoring his life and had found it funny to test his jealousy issues by sending the pretty ginger girl into Zero’s personal space. Jude knew the girl was called Piper, and she was a colleague of Kyle’s. He also knew that the smiles Zero gave her were not directed at her _only_ , that his laughs were about the conversation he was having with _other_ people (including Derek), and that he should most likely stop moping right the fuck now if he didn’t want Kyle or Raquel to pry into his — their — business. Thing was, he didn’t remember exactly _why_ they were hiding anymore. And it wasn’t _just_ about Piper.

Okay maybe it was. With a short sigh he took a sip of his drink.

Kyle was strong-minded, annoyingly great at planning, and cute on top of that. All these factors could probably explain how she had managed to get her manager to close the damn bar where she was working for an entire evening, so she could organize her own birthday party — and also managed, somehow, to make it even more crowded than any average Friday night in a naturally packed place. Trevor was a compliant enough barman and colleague not to enquire about the age of every customer, and Jude was practically sure it was the very reason _why_ he was there that night… And also probably because Kyle wanted to play matchmaker.

Jude was sitting by the bar while Raquel was playing the barmaid with Trevor. Those two were _so_ eye-fucking that it was almost obscene.

“He’s a nice guy,” Kyle shrugged after exchanging a look with Jude, then added with a wicked smile as Raquel and Trevor were busy on the other side of the bar: “I think she needs to loosen up a bit and _that guy_ is totally what she needs right now.”

Jude conceded a groan and tried his best to keep his eyes from automatically flying off to his very own boyfriend, who was standing just on the other side of the room. When Raquel eventually took her eyes away from Trevor’s retreating ass, Jude did his best not to comment. If he was _only_ commenting, she would laugh and her mind would automatically set itself on ‘contradictory spirit’ mode. She could be annoyingly stubborn when she wanted, hence probably why she was getting along with Kyle.

“Okay guys, I need to tell you something now that I got the two of you,” Jude said after downing his vodka — Kyle had made it plain she was considering it an offense if he wasn’t _at least_ tipsy for her birthday.

“I’d be so honored to be chosen for a threesome but you want things neither I nor Raquel have,” Kyle said lightly, and Jude laughed wholeheartedly after giving her a nudge and a ‘shut up let me talk’.

“The fifth floor flat in your building,” he said, grabbing some pistachio nuts in the bowl on the bar. “That’s mine.”

Raquel and Kyle exchanged a look. “What now?”

“You’re the reason I couldn’t get a decent sleep during daytime for the past month?” Kyle yelled, half-outraged, half-delighted.

Jude unapologetically spread his arms. “I am.”

“Hold on, you’re gonna be living two floors away from us?” Raquel exclaimed.

Jude grinned. “Seems so.”

The two girls exchanged another look; then let out a _loud_ and excited squeal, drawing the attention of everyone around them, including Zero. For a second, Jude drowned himself in the laughing blue eyes of the baller, then he resumed his conversation and Jude took his eyes away from him with regret.

“ _Jude_ ,” Raquel called out, making him startle.

He turned to her. “What?”

“I asked you when you were moving in,” Raquel said, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the bar.

“Next week.” Lionel had insisted that he could not move in before everything she ordered had not yet arrived, and apparently there was some furniture still missing — although Jude had not noticed anything particularly lacking, he was giving her the benefit of the doubt. Over a week had passed since Lionel told him about the big news, and also a week since he asked Zero to move in with him.

And he was still waiting for an answer.

While Winter Break had already ended.

Jude was still deep in thought when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

**ZERO.** You/Me photo booth rn

Jude turned on his stool, his eyes wandering around the crowd, but Zero was nowhere to be seen. He slipped out of his seat and told Raquel he was gonna use the bathroom.

Kyle had always had a thing for pictures since she was a kid; she had hundreds and hundreds of them in her bedroom, so it wasn’t that surprising that she rented a photo booth for her 21st birthday. When Zero moved in his dorm, at the beginning of their freshman year, she had given him several pics of Jude and him as a present, and it had taken _days_ before she stopped being mad at him when Zero had torn them apart from resentment after their break-up — to be fair though, Zero still felt bad about it.

Jude made it through various groups of people and finally reached the photo booth, placed in a secluded corner near the corridor leading to the bathroom. The place was small and Jude didn’t know if he was relieved or cruelly disappointed that it meant Zero had not called him to fool around. He hesitated just a second before he pulled the curtain and slipped into the cramped place, only to find his _oh-so-gorgeous_ boyfriend leaning against the golden, sparkling backdrop of the booth.

Jude quirked a brow. “You know that at least the bathroom’s got a lock, right?”

Zero chuckled and drew him closer until they were both standing on the small x made of duct-tape on the floor. “Jude baby Kinkade, I want to live with you and I want to be your boyfriend again.”

“Really?” Jude’s voice was sounding ten times more relieved than he intended it to sound, which got him an amused look and warm chuckle from Zero.

“Of course, stupid. And since I know you just a _tiny bit_ by now, and I don’t want Piper to be found dead tomorrow morning, I think going public is the right thing to do,” Zero said, mischief in his eyes.

Jude blushed; then groaned, turning his face away. “Don’t pout, you know it drives me crazy,” Zero said, planting a kiss on his cheek.

Jude cocked an eyebrow. “Why did you need to bring me in here anyway? It’s not exactly _public_.”

Zero snorted. “Remember all those times I said Kyle was like my annoying sister, always prying into my personal life and stuff?”

“Yeah…?” Jude said, still not sure where this was going. Zero started following the instructions on the small computer screen without hesitation to get the settings right.

“Well, this is exactly what I’d do if she was my _actual_ sister. Throw her the news, and wait for her to digest it while I’m blissfully out of reach,” Zero said with a cheeky grin. “Now, kiss me like you really love me,” he demanded, perching himself on the stool.

“Ouch, tough one. Not sure I’ll manage.”

“Asshole,” Zero grunted, grabbing Jude by his shirt and crashing their lips together, a split-second before the flash of the device briefly lit the small booth.

They kissed some more, took some more pictures, then settled for one in particular, before Zero gathered the three others that had been printed and casually shoved them in his jeans’ back pocket. _Hate when you’re right, Bday-girl. Love. #Zude_ , the baller wrote on the back of the picture with the marker on display. Jude ruffled Zero’s hair when he showed it to him, then his boyfriend stood up and grabbed Jude by the hand.

Zero was still firmly holding onto him when they reached Kyle, who was somewhere between two rounds of shots and halfway through transforming the place into an improvised karaoke. Zero took advantage of the fact that she was talking to someone, slipped the picture under one of the empty glasses, and with a wink at Jude, headed for the door.

Kyle would be pissed for _so_ many things, starting with the fact that they were ducking out from her 21st birthday, that they would not be clubbing with them until the morning and that Derek would rather throw her into a fountain than carry her drunk self on his back the way Zero was doing 99% of the time.

But right now, Jude had a boyfriend, and he did not care.

 


	11. Chapter 11

Jude had heard about the fact that Lionel and Allie already figured out that they were seeing each other again, after escaping from Kyle’s birthday party. In all fairness, he had sincerely been wondering if hiding (or trying to, at least) their relationship had not done more damage than it had actually _helped_ them. The last thing he wanted was for Lionel to get hurt by it. And although they had been laughing like crazy, trying to imagine Kyle’s reaction to the picture, Jude couldn’t deny a vague feeling of uneasiness. It was, after all, incredibly rude to her, and to some extent all their friends who had been patient enough to listen to them complain for months about their broken hearts.

Oddly enough though, everything seemed to settle more quietly than Jude would have ever dreamt. When he came clean to Lionel, she simply said that she was keeping an eye open because she was (rightfully, according to her) worried about him — which left him to wonder how _private_ his private life ever was in the first place. Although she was happy about their reunion, Kyle simply grumbled that they could have _at least_ done it the ‘right way’ — assuming there was one in the first place, which Jude didn’t know about. She didn’t seem to be overreacting, but it didn’t mean that they were not waiting for the other shoe to drop at some point.

The last couple pieces of furniture Lionel had been waiting for arrived a few days later. And so, finally, _finally_ , they moved in as a couple. There were kisses and cuddles and it felt as good as it felt somewhat alien to Jude. Could that be it? Could their adult life be just like _that_?

Zero still insisted that whatever Jude would pay for the next six months, he would reciprocate, and after a few attempts to decline, Jude just gave in. If it meant that his boyfriend was feeling more at peace, well, so be it. So far, yes, they were stupidly happy. Lionel had done an incredible job with the place, going with a semi industrial/modern-chic theme that satisfied them both and Zero’s eyes sparkled as soon as he saw the place.

The kitchen opened into the living room, which was great, but it wasn’t like they were spending much time in there. Jude barely knew how to boil water and Zero was always on the other side of town when it was time to make dinner. On the other hand, laundry was surprisingly no secret for the baller — “I figured it wouldn’t do itself when I was 8” —, so that’s mostly how their life together had settled. Zero was doing laundry and Jude… well. Jude was ordering food. From the Avengers posters in the living room to the TV programs and shared tastes when it came to take-out, everything was perfect.

That is, until Jude found out about the boxes.

He considered the sea of boxes covering the floor, thinking that he _definitely_ couldn’t quite believe it. He picked one randomly, opened it, and stared for a moment at its contents, before replacing the box on the ground. This was getting out of hand, he thought as he stopped counting the boxes when he reached 30.

At this moment, he heard the distinctive sound of the front door opening. “Good morning sunshine,” Zero chanted enthusiastically as he walked into the spare room.

He was just coming back from his morning run, and Jude focused his attention on literally _anything_ that wasn’t his sweaty shirt, waving a box in the air instead. “How many sneakers do you own, _seriously_?”

Zero laughed and took off his headphones. “Dunno. I stopped counting, to be honest,” and then he shrugged before settling down next to Jude on the floor, planting a quick peck in his neck.

The baller took out a black and red pair of Nike sneakers, and Jude could swear there was _fondness_ in his eyes as his boyfriend was looking at them.

“And when did it become the norm to stop counting how many shoes you buy?” Jude deadpanned. “Zero, seriously, you’ve got more shoes than _Lionel_ does!”

“I don’t _buy_ them all. I get most of them for free.”

Jude was about to ask how the hell he managed to get thousands of dollars’ worth of free branded stuff, but then he remembered.

Ah, right.

Baller boyfriend.

Division 1 player, aspiring NBA rising star etc., etc., etc.

Zero snorted. “It’s not even _that_ big of a deal. I mean, you should see all the stuff Terrence gets; it’s, like, insane.”

Now that he was giving it a thought, that wasn’t really hard to picture. Terrence had always been good, but now that his father was monitoring his career more than ever, it was obvious big brands would shower him just like they were showering Zero — and probably even more. Jude was sometimes forgetting two of his childhood friends (and one was his boyfriend to boot) were basically two of the best players in the country. And the best thing was that since they were each on the opposite coast, the risk for them to come face to face during a game was inexistent, which allowed both Zero and Terrence to remain close friends and entertain a long-distance friendship based on mutual respect.

Jude eyed him nonetheless. “You’re competing with Terrence over the number of _shoes_ you guys have, and _I’m_ the gay one?”

Lionel was right; he was really lame at being gay.

“Shut up,” Zero scoffed, nudging him with his elbow.

“Honestly though, I know we’ve got a spare room but even that won’t be enough if you keep accepting stuff,” Jude pointed out.

Zero looked highly offended. “I like them, they’re cool.” he pouted. “Plus, I already gave so much of it to Allie’s brothers. There was way more than that.”

Jude frowned. “I thought you were not supposed to do that.”

“I’m not allowed to _sell_ stuff. I can give it away,” Zero shrugged. “I can’t make any kind of money, that’s the rule. If I was broke, the NCAA wouldn’t even let me prostitute myself,” he summed up dryly.

Jude cocked an eyebrow. “Babe, I think the fact that the NCAA wouldn’t want you to sell your body has more to do with a dozen morality clauses rather than the non-profit rule, just saying.”

Zero eyed him, then put the shoes back in their box and huffed a laugh. “You’re annoying,” he said as he stood up before tugging at the hem of his shirt. “Could you at least have the decency to be annoying in the shower?”

Jude glanced at him innocently. “I already showered.”

Zero smirked and lowered himself to brace his arms around Jude to force him to stand up. “Yeah, well, I already fucked your brains out this morning and it doesn’t make me want to do it again any less.”

*

“This is insane, it looks so different from our place,” Kyle kept repeating as she was wandering around, her eyes not big enough to fully take in everything there was to see.

They had known her well enough to figure that she’d invite herself over sooner or later. So it wasn’t that much of a surprise when she had popped up with Raquel one afternoon, two days after they were officially settled — for the most part.

Jude snorted. “I think that’s mostly because we don’t do much with light pinks and white stuff.”

“It’s not _all_ pink,” Kyle retorted. “My bedroom is light-blue and Raquel’s light-purple, you’ve been in both.”

“And the words you’re looking for are _aesthetically pleasing_ ,” Raquel added haughtily.

Kyle nodded enthusiastically, and clapped her hands together as she headed for the other rooms. “Now let’s see about that love nest of yours.”

Jude slightly blushed, then glared. “I’m torn between asking you to stop being cheesy and to stop mocking me,” he groaned as he trailed behind her.

Kyle scoffed. “Yeah, right, like you’re not cheesy 24/7.”

They entered the bedroom together and Zero and Raquel remained in the living room, the baller sitting by the half-counter leading to the kitchen.

“I’m telling you,” Raquel started, finally glancing at him, “she’s started to make huge plans for your housewarming party.”

Zero cocked an eyebrow. It looked like an olive branch. Maybe he should take it. Jude would probably want him to take it; after all, they had fought because Zero had hurt Jude. Now Jude was fine again, and they were happy. So, okay, yes, Zero had not taken very well to the fact that Raquel had called him out on his shit, but now things were supposed to be fine for everyone. He had even forgiven Derek for doing the same. Plus, it wasn’t like Derek and Raquel were not talking, so she probably _knew_ about their fight and their reconciliation.

Zero absent-mindedly scratched his bicep. “Yeah, well, I don’t really think we should do one.”

Raquel eyed him warily. “Why? It’s just a housewarming party. No harm done.”

He pressed his lips together. “Let’s just say that it’s better if the whole campus doesn’t know that I’m doing more than just occasionally crashing at my boyfriend’s place.”

Her hands flew to her hips. “What the hell is wrong with _you_?” They could hear Jude and Kyle babbling in one of the other rooms, and Raquel stepped closer. “No matter how hard I try to get this to work between us, you’re finding yet another way to make it even harder!”

Zero rolled his eyes. “Okay, look, I’m trying really hard to be likeable as well. It’s just that not everything is under my control.”

She looked puzzled. “What do you mean? I thought you and Jude were like, public again now.”

Zero shifted on his stool. “We are. It’s just that the NCAA doesn’t really like when athletes live off-campus. I’m supposed to be asking for permission from, like, a thousand people before I’m allowed to move out.”

Raquel checked that Jude and Kyle were still busy before she started to talk again, moving even closer. She wasn’t Zero’s favorite person on Earth, clearly, but he was forced to recognize that at least she knew how to be discreet — something that Kyle should learn someday. “Why don’t you just _ask_? I mean that’s not the goddamn Pentagon, you can do what you want if you ask for the required permission.”

Zero pulled a face. Oh great, he hadn’t thought about that already, that was brand new information. He sighed. “The chances that my Coach approves of his Team Captain living off-campus are closer to -25 than 0. And even if he miraculously gave consent, I’d have to deal with a shit-ton of weekly medical appointments and I have literally no time for that unless I stop sleeping.”

Her green eyes narrowed. “Why the fuck would you need medical appointments?”

“The League controls whatever I eat through my pass…?” he said, matter-of-factly; then he frowned. “Where the fuck were you when I started off freshman year ranting on and on about all this shit, seriously?”

Raquel glared at him. “I had a baby, in case you forgot.”

He rolled his eyes. Yeah, like he could forget about it.

“Don’t you think it’s adding even more stress to both of your lives?” Raquel asked as she perched herself next to him. “I get that the two of you want to live together but…”

“But what?” Zero cut sharply.

“Honestly. Jude has been dragged through too much drama in the past: yours, Kyle’s, his parents’, Jelena’s… And mine of course.” She seemed about to add something else when Jude and Kyle came back to the living-room, still busy with their conversation. Raquel turned to Zero. “Just be careful this time.”

*

Zero uncomfortably shifted on the bench while he was getting his ankles wrapped in the training room, and cursed under his breath. _Fuck_. He shouldn’t have been so bold last night, particularly after so long. Jude wasn’t kidding when he said they should perhaps wait for next weekend, if he insisted on bottoming all of a sudden.

Next to him, Nando frowned. “What’s up with you, man?”

Zero froze on the spot. “Nothing,” he muttered with a shrug.

Winter Break had ended over two weeks ago and the official practice sessions had started again. Technically, practice was supposed to be suspended during holidays and vacations — but oh well, the NCAA wasn’t really paying much attention, and since it wasn’t a big deal for the league, well, who cared? And Alford had started off with a not-so-friendly reminder that March was only two months away, which meant that March Madness was literally just next door. That was a nice way not to make everyone stress the shit out of themselves by 9 AM the first day, Zero sarcastically pointed out to himself at the moment.

He was still talking with Nando when a loud concert of whistles invaded the locker room as soon as Zero took off his shirt, making him quirk a brow as he turned back to his smirking teammates.

Kors barked a laugh. “Jeez, you’re not feeding your girls or what?”

Zero looked down at the purple bruises that dotted his torso all the way from his neck to his happy-trail. Well. At least from what the other guys could see right now, while Zero was still wearing his sweatpants. God he wouldn’t hear the end of it when the rest would be on display, he groaned by himself.

“Honestly, that one,” Molina said with a devilish grin as he patted his shoulder. “Keep that one.”

T.J. Crawford, one of the rookies of the year, huffed a sound of protest mixed with a laugh. “You kidding? Dude, I want a piece of that too.”

Zero, who had turned his attention back to his cubby, focused on the fact that Crawford, along with several other rookies, was so desperately trying to get approval and attention from his older teammates. Maybe Zero had done that in the past as well, but he had at least the decency not to turn his attempts into a bawdy show for everyone to enjoy.

“Too bad ‘that’ is too far out of your league,” Zero forced himself to snort.

The other guys howled as Crawford looked down, muttering something that was quite close to ‘shut up’.

Zero momentarily fell silent as the other guys were fussing around, his hand absent-mindedly reaching for the spot on his neck that Jude had been nibbling only a few hours before. He still had not edited his status on Facebook, but it wasn’t like anybody would purposely check on FB nowadays, so it wasn’t that big of a deal and probably why Jude didn’t even bother getting, like, _upset_ about it.

Maybe he should do it. Maybe he shouldn’t be waiting for the right time, for the right moment. There was no perfect moment to tell a bunch of idiots he was in love with a guy. He should just go for it, just like he had done during their freshman year. They were about three weeks into the school year when Zero had pulled Jude in his arms and kissed him deeply at the end of a practice session, to spare his boyfriend from getting his ass kicked by half a team of ballers convinced that the pretty boy in the bleachers was hitting on their girlfriends.

“You were not forced to do that now,” Jude had protested weakly as they were looking at the disbelieved faces around them.

But actually, he had had to. Not just because Jude realized how cute and threatening he looked, but also because Zero had been sent back to the closet for those first three weeks. It had not been on purpose, his preferences and his private life had just not been brought up in conversation. But it had felt so easy to keep pretending he was just like everybody else that it had scared the hell out of him. And that’s how he decided that he couldn’t do that any longer. It was not what he wanted for Jude, for himself, for his career, and so he had kissed him. Because at that moment, he was just one rookie without the slightest relevance, no one had really made a big deal out of it. Girls around Jude had been more disappointed to find out about it than Zero’s teammates.

But that was two years ago. Now he was Team Captain, first rank player, and he was at war with at least two, if not more, titular players of his own team. Worse, he had love-bites marbling his body all over, and rookies fussing about the fact that the one who had done that was surely a fucking slut.

_Just be careful this time_. Raquel’s words kept replaying in his head every now and then. Most of the time, they were just bringing up more questions. But this time, it helped him to make a choice.

_Be careful_.

Not today, Zero decided as he put his jersey on.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Jude was stopped in his tracks, right as he was about to hover in the open kitchen after a long day spent out and about with his ex-stepmother.

It was an ecstatic Lionel who had woken Jude up at 8 in the morning. After a cuddle session earlier (Jude wouldn’t let go of the fact that 5 AM was still nighttime to him, when Zero had no other choice but to consider it morning already), his boyfriend was long gone to his daily routine while Jude had fallen back asleep for a couple of more hours; until his phone feverishly buzzed on the nightstand. Since he had no classes that day, he had suggested for Lionel to meet with him to share breakfast downtown. Of course, as always, that ended up with Lionel dragging Jude to literally every corner of Los Angeles until it was time for her to pick up the kids and _finally_ have someone else to torture.

Jude might have walked a couple of miles today, smelled about a thousand different fragrances, heard a cacophony of sounds and noises, from the crowded sidewalk to the strong humming of the traffic, nothing could what he was hearing now.

Jude looked up at Zero, who had miraculously gotten back home early, and was leaning nonchalantly against the half-counter of the kitchen. As loud and noisy his boyfriend could get, particularly when he got clingy and needy, he did not have the ability to actually _purr_. Why was Jude a hundred percent certain he could hear _purring_?!

“Zero,” Jude asked slowly. “Is there a cat in this apartment or am I dreaming?”

His boyfriend’s face seemed to light up and he chuckled. He lowered himself, disappearing behind the kitchen counter, and got back up with a cat braced in his arms, with large black spots on his white fur and curious green eyes. “Meet Jason Bourne,” Zero grinned proudly.

Jude remained perfectly still. “Since _when_ do we have a cat?”

Zero snorted and put the cat back on the floor. “We don’t. It’s the neighbors’. They were searching for him the other day when I crossed paths with the man. And since this cute little buddy was waiting by the door when I arrived, I figured I could keep him till they got back home.”

There were so many things Jude couldn’t understand in this explanation that he didn’t even know where to start. 1) Zero was _not_ the helping type. He wasn’t asocial; he wasn’t mean or an asshole (rarely on purpose at least). He just didn’t particularly feel like altruism was his priority in life. 2) Never in a million years would Jude have pictured his boyfriend as a cat person; if anything, he seemed more interested in dogs. And 3) …

“ _Jason Bourne_? Really?” he deadpanned.

Zero pulled a face. “Nah, his name is something silly, like Domino or something. But Jason Bourne sounds better.”

Jude shook his head and huffed. “I can’t believe you would name a cat Jason Bourne.” He walked around the counter to get a kiss from his boyfriend.

That was leaving him to wonder what horrifying names Zero could come up with for kids. Not that Jude was actually _thinking_ about having kids — they were just 20, _hello_ … but still. For all he knew, Zero could very well have kids with someone else.

Or with him… Whatever.

He would have been embarrassed at the soft blush that rose to his cheeks if Zero had not already wrapped his arms around his waist and nuzzled in his neck for a moment, sending shivers down Jude’s spine as his skin tickled under his breath. A soft chuckle escaped from his lips when Zero started peppering his neck and jawline with noisy pecks, until he suddenly felt something on his leg. When he looked down, the cat was standing up, front paws pressed along his calf, looking at them expectantly with his big green eyes.

“Why do you have to be cute?” Jude sighed as he parted from Zero to stroke the cat’s head.

“Pretty sure he said that to me too once,” Zero said, looking at the cat with a knowing glance. 

The cat started to purr loudly, giving little nudges with his head in the palm of Jude’s hand. “Babe, I don’t want to be the bad guy,” he said, looking up at Zero, “but I saw the neighbors’ daughter getting in the elevator just when I was entering. Maybe you should take this little Mr. Bourne next door.”

“See? He’s got a face to be called Jason Bourne.”

Jude got up, handing the cat to Zero. “He’s got a face to be called by whatever name his owners gave him. Now go give him back.”

Zero sighed and took the cat. “Come on, buddy. Let’s do what the boss says.”

Jude rolled his eyes. “Don’t call me that, I’m not _bossy_.”

“You’re hot when you’re bossy, I don’t mind,” Zero winked as he retreated out the front door.

Jude groaned as the door closed behind him, and he turned to the fridge to retrieve a water bottle, before heading to the living room. He took advantage of the relative quiet of the moment to rapidly flip through some notes he had taken in one of his morning courses. Only about fifteen minutes had passed, but when Zero got back, Jude felt like someone had switched his boyfriend with a twin or something. The baller’s face was pale and his pretty blue eyes looked like they were stuck in a perpetually astonished expression.

“I-I think I just got sexually assaulted,” he stated, in obvious disbelief. Jude looked up, confused. “The neighbors’ daughter; she’s… she’s quite something.”

It took a second for Jude to process, and since Zero still looked like he had seen a ghost, he just couldn’t hold back the laugh that burst out as he got up from the couch.

“Welcome to the other side! Like all the women in this world, you’re gonna have to figure out with whom it’s safe to take the elevator and when it’s safer to take the stairs,” Jude teased as Zero traded his astonishment for an outraged glare.

“Are you done mocking me?” he exclaimed, offended. “She was _this close_ to grabbing my ass!”

Jude grinned widely. “I’ve only just started, but I can keep the rest for later,” he offered as he pulled Zero into a hug.

“I hate you,” his boyfriend groaned, standing stubbornly still. He knew perfectly well that Jude hated whenever he did that, but Jude was far too busy teasing him to bother getting upset.

“Sure you do,” he retorted, planting a kiss on his lips. “Do you want me to go and tell her that I’m the only one who can grab this ass?” he asked, doing so as he spoke.

Zero rolled his eyes and threw his arms around Jude’s shoulders. “Who cares about her, _I_ need comfort.”

*

As with most things one tries to hide, the fact that Zero was in a relationship with a guy all over again came out easily. Not because he had told people outside of his family and friends, not because someone had spotted him and Jude, not even because someone had vaguely heard about it and put two and two together. No, Zero was just stupidly betrayed by his very own screensaver — a pic from his prom. It surely wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, much less rang any bell, if that particular pic had not been his phone wallpaper for over a year. Was it a silly move to put that pic as his screensaver when he had yet to come up with a way to tell his teammates he was with a guy? Of course it was. But the damage was done as soon as Molina saw the incoming text appear on the screen, as they were changing in the locker room.

“Why do you have your ex as your screensaver, dude?”

Teenage girls were shallow and prompt to gossip and fuss over the latest news at school? Yeah, you probably never entered a locker room full of college athletes — supposedly grown-up dudes, who were the worst sluts on Earth when it came to gossip. The word ‘ex’ seemed to operate like a magic trick, like those whistles for dogs that made them raise their ears instinctively. Suddenly, all eyes were on Zero. Good thing his skin had regained much of his sun-kissed color and the hickeys had faded away, because there was no way out of this. Zero felt hot and cold at the same time, and his stomach made a backflip before he forced himself to breathe slowly.

“That’s not my ex anymore. We made up,” he said conversationally, without really looking at anyone in particular.

“I didn’t know you had an ex here,” Crawford exclaimed, with yet again too much emphasis not to sound like fake interest, only motivated by the need to sound like they were bros. The kid’s question would have seemed out of place and slightly odd if they had been regular students, but thing was, most of athlete students just didn’t date, ever — too little time to deal with all the extra shit. Molina, Nando and Curtis did so because they were in their senior year and soon off to other adventures. Parker was just as stupidly obstinate as Zero was when he first came in. “Who’s she?”

Zero turned to him. “It’s not a she, it’s a he.” 

The silence, shocked or thoughtful, that had taken over the locker room was broken by a laugh.

“Okay, nice try, like you’re into guys,” Crawford scoffed, shaking his head as if that was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Zero only lifted an eyebrow. The rookie blinked a few times and his laugh ran dry in his throat. “What, you're really into _dudes_?”

Zero smiled coldly. “Does that bother you?”

Crawford shared a look with Ryder, disbelieving as if he had just learnt that Santa did not exist. “What about all the _chicks_?” he blurted.

Zero snarled and turned to his cubby. “As much as I'd like to give you a proper explanation on how bisexuality works exactly,… _meh_ , I don't give a damn whether you understand it or not, so I’ll just go with the facts.” He put his phone in his duffle bag and closed the zipper with one swift move, before turning back to Crawford. “I've been dating my man on this campus and in this team when you were still desperately trying to get your dick sucked off by a cheerleader behind the bleachers of whatever hole-in-the-wall town you were born in. So I’m gonna ask you once more, for good measure. Does that bother you?”

His question was met by only solid silence, which he took as an answer. He granted one final glare at Crawford and exited the locker room.

*

Jude was nervously staring at the clock on the wall above their flat screen, trying not to think about how badly Zero would react when he finds out about the gorgeous boy who was fast asleep in his boyfriend’s arms. He was going to come home at some point, and he was going to be pissed.

Thing was, Jude had not meant for it to happen like that; it kinda just happened. One minute he was talking with his friends, and the next, _he_ was in his arms. Not that Jude minded. He was _really_ cute. Annoying, loud, messy, but a total pretty boy — Jude had a type, apparently. Except that Zero was on the way home, and Jude was fucking tense. This situation could potentially bring up so many questions, so many issues that they were not exactly ready to discuss, like Zero’s jealousy, Zero’s abandonment issues; and Jude’s loyalty, if not _fidelity_.

Jude tried his best to calm his heartbeat when the front door opened. The flat was built so that the entrance was directly connected to the living room, which was great for a number of reasons, but annoying for others. Zero’s smile tightened, and Jude could clearly see that he was trying not to let it drop completely.

“Did I miss a memo or what?” the baller asked sternly, dropping his bag in the entrance.

“Not really, no. There wasn’t one,” Jude admitted sheepishly, while Miguel was still blissfully asleep in his arms. “Raquel asked me if we could keep him for the night. Kyle’s working and her baby-sitter couldn’t.”

Zero restrained an eye-roll, but his blue eyes reflected his annoyance so well that it didn’t make much difference in the end. He headed to the kitchen and Jude had no other option than to remain on the couch with his godson. Good thing there wasn’t a damn wall between the two rooms.

“I’m leaving tomorrow. I was hoping to have a quiet evening with my boyfriend,” Zero grumbled, obviously disappointed and _upset_. Fuck, Jude hated to be right.

“I couldn’t say no to Raquel,” Jude tried, embarrassed.

Zero groaned from the fridge, where he was retrieving a soda can. “You know what she’s doing. She’s cock-blocking me.”

Jude huffed, because he couldn’t quite take it seriously. “Hey remember, if she was cock-blocking you, she would also be cock-blocking _me_. And she loves me, so...”

Zero glared at him and Jude gave him his most sheepish look. “She’s out with Trevor. You know, the barman from Kyle’s birthday.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zero replied, and before Jude could say anything, his boyfriend muttered a ‘gonna take a shower’ and left the kitchen to head for the bathroom without a glance back.

Jude let out a small sigh and looked at his godson helplessly, before focusing on the TV again and the rerun of Bones, almost set on mute, that he was watching before Zero came back.

The flat remained unusually silent for nearly forty minutes, and Jude was contemplating calling Raquel to tell her that his relationship was at stake and her night out with Trevor could wait, when Zero finally got out of the bathroom and came to sit down on the couch — although much farther from where he would usually sit, which was practically on Jude’s lap. He had put on a GO BRUINS! sweater and a pair of sweatpants; his hair was uncombed.

Jude heaved a sigh. “Don’t be mad at him, please.”

“I’m not mad at him,” Zero replied without taking his eyes away from the screen, arms crossed.

“So you’re mad at me?”

Zero didn’t reply at first and Jude felt his throat growing tighter and tighter until his boyfriend eventually sighed, then got closer, unfolding his arms. “Of course not. It’s just… other stuff, it’s nothing,” he mumbled. He extended his arm on the edge of the couch, behind Jude’s shoulders, and rested his left hand on Miguel’s legs.

There was another silent moment and Jude’s eyes fell onto Zero’s hand. More specifically, Zero’s hand so close to Miguel’s tiny feet. He felt bad, if the atmosphere from the past hour was not enough to make him feel so. He knew Zero was doing his best with the whole Miguel situation, since the very beginning. It had never been easy for him to accept that everybody had just not really taken his opinion and sensibilities into account. Granted Jude dropped the idea of claiming Miguel as his own, but the kid had taken a place in his life that was difficult to ignore ever since.

“Did you eat anything?” Jude asked as he glanced at the clock. Zero had come back a tiny bit later than usual and Jude had eaten some pasta while feeding Miguel.

Zero nodded. “Yeah, I grabbed something on the way back. Do you mind if I switch to ESPN?”

“Not at all.”

How cordial they were. Jude hated every bit of it. They watched the latest sport news until Jude couldn’t stand it any longer. He grabbed the remote from Zero’s hand and shut the TV off.

“Jude, what the-”

“I’m sorry I became the father figure of my best friend’s son,” he blurted, looking him right in the eye. “I’m sorry you didn’t want me to experience it without you. I’m sorry you got the impression that your opinion doesn’t matter, because it will always matter to me. It just kind of happened and I’m sorry you have to feel like you’re not part of it, because you _are_.” He reached for his hand, not bothering to worry whether or not Zero felt like taking it. He just wanted him to understand that everything about him mattered to him, and would always matter. “Instead of thinking of it as if I’m throwing my first experience of parenthood in the trash… Well, you could just consider it like a training session, practice... for whatever could come later.”

As soon as the words were out, Jude felt his heartbeat rise and his stomach fall into the endless pit of remorse and stupid things that shouldn’t have been said out loud. A second passed, and Jude tried his best to hold Zero’s gaze.

“Jude,” Zero deadpanned, “are you actually talking about you and me having _kids_ someday?”

Jude blushed and looked somewhere else. “Well, I don’t know. Who knows what’s in store for us?”

There was pause before Zero laughed, shaking his head as a smirk softly appeared on his gorgeous face. “Keep your pants on, Kinkade. There are too many teen parents in my life at the moment.”

Jude rolled his eyes. Why did he hope his boyfriend could be serious for one minute?

He was almost ready to tell him to go screw himself when Zero started to talk again. “But… If you had asked a year ago where I was seeing myself in ten years, well, yeah, I would surely have told you that I was seeing myself playing for the Miami Heats or the Los Angeles Lakers; raising a kid with your eyes and your beautiful smile, and my annoying sense of humor,” Zero admitted.

Jude felt his stomach flip. “And you… you don’t anymore?” he asked, more nervously than what he intended it to sound.

Zero gave it a thought. “To be honest, now, I only see myself playing for the Miami Heats or the Los Angeles Lakers,” he confessed, rubbing his forearm. “It’s not because I don’t see you, or any fictional kid of ours, in my future anymore. It’s not because I don’t want you in my life when I achieve my goals and fulfill my dreams. It’s just because…” There was pause full of tension as his boyfriend seemed to search his words. “It’s because I feel like I took you for granted from the beginning. When you asked for that break last year, it just made me realize that you could walk away any time. You’re… You’re the most incredible person I know, Jude. And I love you with all my heart, because you’re brilliant, and beautiful and caring. You’re bound to do _so_ _many_ great things. Meanwhile, I'm stuck with a messy future,” he sighed, and it was the first time in living memory that Jude felt Zero’s bitterness towards his career-goal. “My career will never be easy. It will be tough at the beginning, tough in the middle, and tough at the end. I want to focus on that, because that I can make plans for. Because that's just about me.”

Jude swallowed and took a second to digest it, trying not to go down the wrong road.

“So what you're suggesting,” Jude said slowly, “is that we should not talk about a future together because that's kind of bad luck.”

Zero shrugged. “My version sounded better.”

Jude chuckled. The atmosphere felt a lot lighter now, and Zero finally kissed him for the first time that evening, which meant they were good.

They shared a long, tender look, and Jude smiled. “See? It's been like, two minutes, and I'm still not gone,” he remarked, fully aware that he would most likely be replaying Zero’s speech over and over again in his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so maybe you've noticed (most likely not tho), but i added a couple of other tags that will more or less well, _define_ the rest of the story. Some others will be added in due time as well (:


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: homophobia and racism. If you don't feel comfortable reading this, you can stop at the end of the first bit (:

Zero didn’t exactly _hope_ or _expect_ things would get better after spilling the beans to the Team. Although, all in all it was his second coming-out as a Bruin, so maybe he _could have_ expected it to turn out differently. Except he didn’t, and he was right. Things didn’t get better. Things didn’t even stay the same as they were before.

Things actually got worse.

And worse.

And even worse than that.

To avoid any awkward stares or conversations, Zero took to the habit of arriving earlier than the others in an attempt to spend as little time as possible in the locker room with them; this habit in particular had one good effect and about a hundred bad.

The good being that since he was arriving before and leaving after everybody, it made him look like a perfectly involved and dutiful captain. The negative effect was that he had no clue what was happening in the locker room. Well, actually no, he had _clues,_ because he wasn’t stupid and he had heard things when he was walking nearby. For example, he _did_ hear when Crawford adamantly complained that having a gay captain (that kid was really clueless, it was sadder than it was funny) made them all look like fags.

“Come on guys, don’t you remember what the fuck happened to the Blue Devils?!” the rookie blurted out. “I don’t wanna go down with him when they chew him up like they fucking chewed and spat out Redick!”

To be fair, Zero was not exactly fazed by the kid’s remark. He firmly believed that it wasn’t any safer to stay hidden and in the closet than to step out and proud. As for Crawford’s main concern about what other people might think of his sexuality if he was to appear next to a bisexual captain, well, he had no answer for that, because honestly that was hopeless. He was far more bothered by the fact that someone had claimed he couldn’t have any kind of respect for Zero, who had notoriously so little self-esteem that he had accepted to crawl back on his knees for a guy who had cheated on him — but Zero couldn’t say anything about it, it was his penance for digging his own stupid grave the year before.

What Zero did not expect was for the situation to affect his relationship with Molina and Nando as well. The guys had known him when he was in his first relationship with Jude, and aside from those three weeks where he had not commented much on his private life in his freshman year, he had never made any mystery that he was very much happy and that his happiness was directly related to his _boyfriend_. But that did not explain why it was suddenly a problem. Sure, Nando and Molina were not exactly his best friends — not like Derek or Terrence — but it hurt nonetheless.

With solid ground on which to focus his hatred, Curtis did not have a hard time rallying people around him; which was probably as easy as stealing candy from a baby. Crawford was more than happy to sign up, just like Ryder. Kors was dangerously on the verge of joining the anti-Zero club that had formed within the Team, not to mention Parker, who had never been a fan of his in the first place; and Anwar, an up-and-comer who Zero barely knew at all, but never really cared much about, up until now.

It wasn’t even worth saying that all of it damaged Zero’s authority as Captain; in less than two weeks, it had completely vanished. The orders he was giving, the comments he was making, the strategies he was suggesting; everything slipped through his teammates like water. When Zero was catching the ball on Court, it was either because there was no option left, or by accident — the latter occasion resulting into angry glares from the others to the one teammate who had dared to make that mistake. Morrison, who had eyes and ears everywhere, _couldn’t_ have missed the fact that something happened. The fact that he never bothered mentioning it to Zero when he was hassling him to get more focused, to lift more weights, to run more drills and to behave better, only meant one thing: he was not planning to intervene. Zero knew how it worked; Morrison was there as long as things were working, and he had never thought it could be otherwise — he wasn’t fucking naïve. But he pissed him off.

Things got so heated one afternoon that all the players were dismissed halfway through practice. Granted, at any other moment of his life, Zero wouldn’t have reacted so strongly. But he had just been through nearly three weeks of constant sneers and awkward looks, messy games and unfair scolding; so, when he turned back to see Parker laughing with the others for the third time since Zero had started speaking, he had seen red.

“If you can’t take this seriously, there’s no spot for you in D1,” Zero had growled sharply, only to be granted a sneer.

“What are you gonna do about it?” Parker had retorted.

The answer was: ‘punch the hell out of you’. A lot of people stepped between them before any permanent damage was done— which Zero should probably have been grateful for, if it hadn’t meant Parker didn’t get to receive the punch in the face he deserved. He tried to hold onto the gleam of terror that had danced for a split-second in Parker’s eyes, but it wasn’t the same.

It was February before Zero even had the time to catch a breath. Predictably, Zero’s bisexuality became the hot topic on Campus. He would have probably _cared_ , if he had had the time to think about it. The pressure kept rising from all sides, to the point where he lost track of the schedule. Days went by, shit happened, games were played. It didn’t mean Zero was out of it. He was just out of _most_ of it. He still managed to get focused during game nights, to make the crowds roar in the stands and his haters sulk at every shot he pulled through the hoop; but as far as he was concerned, he was on automatic pilot in-between.

One afternoon, he didn’t have the time to wait around the locker room for everybody else to get out; Jude was supposed to fetch him after practice. But he was so deep in his own headspace he couldn’t remember why. When Jude reminded him through text between two practice sessions that he was coming over to give him a ride later, Zero had replied ‘okay’. Okay to what? He just didn’t know, and he hadn’t wanted say that to Jude, scared as he was to upset him.

When he walked in the locker room, conversations stopped for a moment, then started again, slower, quieter, as if the guys speaking were side-eyeing him all at the same time — no doubt that was exactly what was happening. Zero stripped, and headed for the shower, with neither a word nor a lost glance. Molina was gone already by the time the blond baller came back, a towel wrapped around his waist. Nando was busy putting his pants on. They exchanged a look, most likely unwanted, even though Zero was practically sure he was going to say something, until someone (likely Kors) called him out.

Zero rolled his eyes to himself and proceeded to get dressed. Although he had joined the locker room later than most of his teammates, who were already starting to dress when he had hit the shower, Zero was ready in record time; just in time to walk out of the building with them. As always, he had just shut his brain down whenever he was within hearing distance of their sneers, which explained why he startled so much when he heard a familiar voice.

“Fuck dude, too late to see his ass in his shorts,” someone protested, sounding obviously disappointed.

Zero blinked (twice exactly) and realized he was not the only one who had paused. Most of his teammates had just done the same, staring in shock at the two guys standing in front of the building, only a couple of feet away.

“That’s fucking Terrence _Wall_ ,” a voice stuttered behind him — Crawford apparently. “The fucking Eastern Devil.”

Zero felt a huge grin show up on his face at the sight of his two childhood best friends, while Derek and Terrence headed towards him. The fog he had been lost in since the previous morning started to dissipate as the pieces clicked together. _Right,_ Terrence’s birthday. The only moment of the year Wall was coming to this Coast since his family had moved out East after he started attending Duke. Zero couldn’t believe he had forgotten about that.

The three boys met halfway, and there was a gasp, half-offended, half-admiring, when they all registered that Terrence Wall was there for no one but their much hated Captain. Some of them knew Zero had ties with him in the past, but they had no clue they were so close, which probably came as a shock. 

“Fuck you’ve never learned not to be late,” Zero exclaimed as he exchanged warm accolades with Terrence.

“Ah man, I hate that I miss your stupid blonde head so much,” Terrence complained, his large hand ruffling Zero’s damp hair. Then he granted a glance to the Bruins who were still fiddling together by the front door. “So, do you have like, a remote or something to get them to move on Court?” he sarcastically enquired, pointing at them.

“They get their energy from getting on my nerves. Never ran so fast since Christmas,” Zero sneered haughtily, loud enough for his insufferable teammates to hear.

Derek burst out laughing. Curtis, Ryder, and Anwar glared at them; then started to slowly walk away, muttering among themselves.

“Come on, you’re coming with us,” Derek decided.

Zero snorted. “It’s _his_ birthday. He’s the one you’re supposed to paw over. Plus, Jude’s supposed to give me a ride.”

“Sure he is,” Derek snickered smugly.

Zero glared at him. “You’ve spent too much time with Kyle man.”

“Is he absolutely wrong, though?” Zero turned back and literally felt himself beaming when his eyes landed on his boyfriend.

The shuffle among the remaining teammates died down when Terrence barked a cheerful ‘ _Kinkade!’_ and drew Jude into a bear hug. Crawford’s eyes were wide as saucers. The fact that _Terrence_ _Wall,_ best player on the East Coast, Captain of the _Blue Devils_ , who would declare for the draft in two months, would _hug_ the gay boyfriend of their Captain, was the last straw it took for Crawford and the rest of the players standing there to back away, almost in panic.

Zero should have been bothered and annoyed; but he was just too far out of it to feel anything but stupid pride for Terrence’s gesture. He reconnected with reality while Wall was saying something stupid like ‘glad you guys made up’, which made him roll his eyes — albeit fondly. On the way to the parking lot, Derek and Terrence debated the quickest and easiest way to make it to the place they were all supposed to meet with Raquel and Kyle for dinner. Jude reached for his hand.

“You look tired,” he remarked when they slalomed between the cars, tightening his grip on Zero’s fingers to get his attention.

The blond baller planted a kiss on Jude’s cheek, which made him beam and Zero’s heart flicker at the sight. “I’m great,” he said, smiling. He’d spend a night out with Jude, Wall, Roman, Kyle and Raquel.

Everything felt great.

*

When they reached the club, it was past 11pm and Jude felt 17 all over again. Granted, he was just 20. But as far as he was concerned, trying to sneak into a club _while_ having Terrence around felt a lot like going back to high school. That night, Terrence was not off 3,000 miles away, Raquel wasn’t a mother and Zero was still sneaking into Jude’s bed whenever they thought Lionel wasn’t noticing.

They had dinner in a Latin Restaurant and facetimed Ahsha to keep Derek from whining. She stayed with them through half of dinner, Raquel’s phone leaning up against her giant mojito, until she had to go to sleep — she had rehearsals early next morning and couldn’t stay up any longer. Derek was banished from the table until he could finally bring himself to hang up and stop those sickening professions of love to his girlfriend.

“If we ever end up like this, shoot me,” Zero groaned, sharing a look with Jude. It took only a split-second for Raquel to hold her fingers together like a mini-gun and pretended to shoot him several times, before shooting one at Jude.

Zero gasped, offended. “You shot me like, _ten times_!”

Raquel shrugged. “I love him more. The gun gives and the gun takes away.”

Zero threw his napkin at her in retaliation and told her she should be grateful his glass was empty for the time being. The waiter, who was passing by to get to another table, granted them a glare full of warnings, and Zero gave him his brightest smile. The conversation then drifted on to Terrence’s life for a while, mostly because Raquel pointed out that it was still impressive that he had gotten the opportunity to leave at all mid-season.

“I kinda have to thank Clarence for that. Baby bro got himself benched for some dick move on court,” Terrence snorted with a dismissive wave of the hand. “The Pop’s busy for a while.”

Oddly enough, while Jude had completely cut ties with his father, Terrence had to put up more and more with his own over the years. Selden Wall had his very own way of being scary and bossy, which was strangely opposite to Oscar’s behavior, but the results were the same. Just like most of the times Jude found himself thinking about his father, he couldn’t completely suppress a vague feeling of uneasiness. Without stopping his conversation with Derek, Zero put his hand on Jude’s knee and started stroking it with his thumb in a soothing gesture, and Jude couldn’t help but wonder if it was just a random, but sweet, move; or if Zero had somehow sensed his discomfort. Either way, it did the trick and as the night went on, Jude forgot everything about his sperm donor. 

The line outside the club occupied most of the sidewalk when they got there, snaking its way out of the club until well past the street’s corner. Instead of going to the back of the line, Kyle made a bee-line directly for the bouncer; starting off with the game they had called ‘Ego or Cash’ a while back. It wasn’t exactly a game; they just had two options to convince the bouncer to let them enter straight inside: Zero’s reputation or Jude’s cash. Raquel and Kyle were hot; they rarely, if ever, got carded for their IDs before entering (not that Kyle needed one, real or fake, anymore) and whoever of the boys was with them often got free ticket in. Cops would be astounded to see how easy it was to get in, to be honest. The bouncer, a big guy with a dark brush cut, literally choked on his breath when he registered Terrence and Zero, which probably was the most effective reassurance that they were not-so-low-key celebrities, after all.

“Great, how am I gonna get him to do laundry again, now?” Jude deadpanned.

Wall’s face was on the verge of splitting in two, and they followed Kyle as she cheerfully ventured into the club, walking past the bouncer under the disappointed stare of the people waiting in the queue. Jude had always been a quiet kid; more often drawn towards quiet activities than not. He, himself, wouldn’t have expected to _like_ clubbing. It took a brief moment for his body to adjust to the flashing lights, the sea of bodies pressing against each other, and the music, so loud that it made everything vibrate all the way through Jude’s ribcage.

Raquel and Kyle immediately strode right to the bar as if they owned the place, while Derek pulled the remaining four of them into a booth. Minutes later, Kyle and Raquel returned with multiple trays of glasses and shots.

“Drink this one,” Zero ordered as he slid a shot to Derek across the table.

Roman drank without asking and slid the empty glass back to Zero.

Kyle raised her glass. “Now we get to toast!”

And they did toast.

Multiple times, actually.

To Terrence’s birthday, to Kyle’s (even if that was a late one), to the Blue Devils’ season, to Zero’s season (when Terrence was told about the real mess behind the scenes, his principles forbad him to cheer to Zero’s teammates, as he explained), to the impending draft in general. No one was really paying attention to Zero cheering with the glass Derek had emptied minutes before; they were all long used to it. They danced and laughed, going back to the booth every now and then. Jude was a little tipsy by the time they ran out of drinks for the second time. He was feeling warm and comfortable with Zero in his arms, and whined like a kid when Kyle declared he had to get the refills this time.

Zero offered to replace him, which granted him a deep kiss from Jude — which meant there was 50% chances that Zero got pissed at him the following morning for drinking too much, because PDA wasn’t exactly Jude’s thing — before Jude stood up to go by himself. The last thing he heard before losing himself in the sea of people was the offended voice of Derek. “And _I’_ ve been fucking _banished_ from the table?!”

When he reached the bar, Jude was surprised by the green lights hanging above the bartender’s workspace, giving the place a slightly odd atmosphere. A group of girls, one of them wearing a ‘bride-to-be’ sash, was ordering with loud laughs and giggles. A few other people were gathered around the bar, the closest to him being a trio of guys who couldn’t be older than Jude. One of them was trying to get the attention of a pretty brunette from the group of girls, but he only managed to receive a disgusted groan that almost had Jude bursting out laughing.

Since he wasn’t sure about what they had ordered since the beginning, Raquel had thought of nothing better than to write it down across his arm with her eyeliner — Jude was giving it fifteen minutes before the damp warmth of the place turned the whole thing into a black mess. After about five minutes, Jude finally was able to get the attention of the bartender. He was left waiting while the drinks were being prepared, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counter. One of guys next to him locked eyes, mostly by accident on Jude’s part, and Jude felt suddenly uncomfortable — which was pretty unfortunate, given that it had taken many drinks before he could completely relax, as always.

“What are you even doing here?”  the guy slurred after an intense minute of glaring.

Jude was torn between 'I'm sorry, what?' and 'Do we know each other?', but the way he had talked to him made Jude think that courtesy was off the table. He frowned. “What?”

The guy turned on his stool, leaning back against the bar. “You fags got your own clubs for a reason, right?”

One of his buddies — the one who had just been rejected by the pretty brunette — laughed at that. It took a second for Jude to realize what the hell was happening. He forced himself to straighten his position, taking himself away from the bar; he really hated the way his cheeks reddened under the insult.

“Sure, straight clubs work so well for you,” Jude snapped, mentally urging the bartender to hurry the fuck up with his order.

The guy sitting on the stool loudly slammed his empty glass on the bar. “Heard that, guys? Lil’ faggot sure knows a lot about pussies.”

The bartender was fucking _slow_. He contemplated leaving things at that and return back to the table, when someone reached for his arm behind him, making him startle. “Jude, you’ coming?” Derek asked, and honestly Jude had never been so happy to see him his _entire life_.

His joy was short-lived.

The guy on the stool interrupted before Jude could say anything, obnoxiously glancing at his buddies. “Eh, Blondie’s not ‘nuff, lil' fag got himself a negro too, uh?”

Derek’s eyes narrowed and Jude’s widened. Despite the guy still sitting down, Jude knew well enough by now that Derek was half a head taller than himself, and generally speaking, than most people he knew — except college ballers. The guy wasn’t just an asshole; he apparently had a fucking death wish. “True what they say, fags, sluts, same difference, ammie right Edds?” he drawled again, turning to the bartender who had just returned to their area.

“You might want to apologize for that,” Derek bit back with an icy smile full of hate.

Jude had known him their entire life and he knew he was making visible efforts to calm down. He decided to intervene before it got out of hand. “Derek, it’s okay. Let’s just go,” and he turned back, hoping that Roman would follow.

He might, _he might_ have succeeded if the asshole hadn’t decided to fucking die that night. “That’ss right, fuckin’-negger, listen to your schick,” he slurred among the barking sneers of his friends. Derek stopped in his tracks and turned back, faster than Jude could have anticipated. In barely two steps, he was right in the personal space of the guy, all 6’5” of pissed off muscles and slightly drunk brain.

“If he was my boy trust me, you wouldn't be able to talk for the next three fucking months,” he growled, baring his teeth.

Jude saw the bartender slightly leaning behind the counter and remembered, somewhere in his brain, that hidden button Kyle had once said Trevor used to call security in case of emergency. He grabbed Derek's arm and forced him to stay back. 

“Derek, they know the guys- _our_ guys, they know we came with them,” Jude said hurriedly, griping at his arm. “It's not the moment to start a mess with the _boys around_!”

Last thing anyone needed was for people to gossip about the Captain of the Bruins and the Captain of the Blue Devils caught in a drift while clubbing, even more so for Zero who was underage. Which was definitely bound to happen if Derek was throwing even the tiniest fist, no matter if the guy was the worst asshole on freaking Earth.

“ _Derek_ ,” Jude insisted, and with one last glance full of hatred, Derek stopped planting his feet in the ground and let Jude take him away, pushing him before him so that he could drag him away again if his friend was taken one more time by the need to crush the asshole. But this time, Derek complied and they headed back to their booth, the atmosphere of the club feeling suffocating all of a sudden. Crossing the dancefloor and the bouncing bodies was the hardest, Jude feeling uncomfortable like he rarely was. He was feeling light-headed, booze from the beginning of the night starting to make his world spin around a little as they reached their friends.

“Where have you guys been? Where are our drinks?” Kyle exclaimed.

It took no more than two seconds for Zero to think that something happened, being the only one with a clear head — not that it was hard to put two and two together, Jude was pretty sure he looked as drained as he was feeling and Derek was still livid, sitting back at his spot without a word. “Jude, what happened?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. They asked for our IDs. Derek tried to sweet talk but they wouldn't accept,” he said, waving with his hand. “So if you guys plan on drinking something that needs any kind of license before next March or next May, you better get it yourself,” Jude said, the lie smooth on his tongue.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: the status of this fic has now been updated! (:  
> I'm just so thankful to all the people who keep reading this story, it means a lot <3

Jude had not been exactly expecting _much_ when it came to living with Zero. He had not really given it any thought at all; given his nature, should have already been a clue in itself. Now that he was thinking about it though, maybe he should have been entitled to expect something... _Anything_.

Like, surely lots of Zero hopping onto the kitchen countertop, quick pecks ending up in full make-out sessions against the front door, the shower, literally any wall or flat surface; more pizzas that Jude could stand, and a fridge full of diet cokes and sports drinks. He would have expected Zero to be a complete — albeit gorgeous — pain in the ass, making fun of him for not partying much, stealing his schoolbooks whenever he’d think Jude had studied long enough, whining when Jude would not give him as much attention as he was entitled to request from him: In short, exactly how Zero had been behaving since high school. And although things were quite close when they started living together, it did not last long.

If there was one thing that Jude would have _never_ anticipated when moving in with Zero, it was to live as if he were single all over again.

Well, _mostly_ single.

‘Mostly’ being, right now, his fast asleep boyfriend sprawled over him on the couch, while Jude was watching the first cast of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ running in panic through the Seattle Grace Hospital for the umpteenth time. His left hand was resting on Zero’s side, and his right hand was busy running pensively through his boyfriend’s hair.

So far from the days where Zero had been living at the Kinkades’, or when they were alternating between either of their dorms in freshman and sophomore year in college, Jude had genuinely thought he had already seen most of Zero’s habits and lifestyle. But back then Zero was just a varsity player, and later a second-class player; a _rookie_. It was easy, for the most part, because he was insanely gifted, and his baller boyfriend had not hesitated to capitalize on that as long as it lasted. Except that now, Jude was dating a first-rank NCAA player, Team Captain to boot. It could have been a turn-on, if only Zero’s body wasn’t acting like it had just gone goddamn comatose every time he got back home.

Jude was doing his best, really. But as far as he was concerned, he was spending about two hours _tops_ with a living Zero. The rest of the time was seeing his boyfriend off to his daily routine or dead to the world on the couch — sometimes directly to bed. After Christmas, it was just _so_ perfect, because Zero would come back home, and even after his long day he had all this pent-up energy that he was _dying_ to get out of his system — and, well, who was Jude to complain, really, because _god_ that was definitely some of the best sex he had ever had; but now the tiniest thing seemed to be draining every bit of energy he had at all. And that’s when Jude had to start facing the truth: there were good days, and there were the other days. Good days would include Jude coming home to find Zero building a pillow fort in the middle of their living room, eyes sparkling and gorgeous smile, or Jude waking up to a man-size puppy wanting nothing but to cuddle. Then there were the other days. Jude refused to call them _bad days_ , at first because, all in all, they were not exactly ‘bad days’, just slightly less cuddle-filled mornings and laugh-filled evenings. Then he simply refused to call them ‘bad days’ because he would have to call ‘bad days’ the majority of his life with Zero, which was absolutely unfair.

Zero shifted in his sleep, a soft groan escaping from his slightly parted lips, and he attempted to bury his face even deeper in Jude’s lap. Yes, he was doing that often too. Probably cursing at someone who had somehow outraged him during the day. That was rather endearing, though.

_If only he got two words from his boyfriend._

Over a week had passed since Terrence’s visit and Jude’s hopes to see his boyfriend going back to his ‘normal mode’ had vanished as soon as Wall had taken that damn plane. It wasn’t like Jude had nothing else to do all day other than think about the fact that his boyfriend was getting an insane amount of sleep these days, but he couldn’t help but think about it every now and then. Sleep was Zero’s coping mechanism. He was just sleeping whenever something was bugging him on a deeper level. Like, when Jude had gotten his surgery, or after he had dislocated his shoulder; basically when things were getting too intense for him to deal with them. Jude wouldn’t call that avoidance; avoidance would imply an active part, which was far from being the case. It was more like… yeah, a coping mechanism. He had tried to talk Zero into getting therapy, twice. Okay maybe four or five times, since they started dating. Point was, it was one of those subjects he knew now he should avoid at all cost. 

Jude’s attention drifted back from the tv to the blonde head resting on his lap, and restrained a groan as he tried to lift himself up a little without waking Zero up. He had not moved for over an hour and now he was starting to feel cramps in his stretched out legs. Zero wriggled again and Jude froze, starting to move only when his boyfriend slowly rolled onto his back, his eyes fluttering half-opened.

Jude smirked, brushing a blond strand of hair away from Zero’s face. “Hi sleepyhead.”

His only answer was a muffled groan as Zero was hiding his face in the crook of his elbow. Jude patted his chest, and leaned over him to put the TV remote on the coffee table. “Time to go to bed,” he said.

“I’m too tired to move,” Zero groaned, but it mostly came out as ‘m t’tir’d t’m’v’.

Jude snorted. “Don’t force me to get you in bed myself.”

“‘Wouldn’t be able,” Zero muttered from his elbow.

Jude lifted an eyebrow, even though Zero wasn’t looking at him. He slipped an arm behind Zero’s back and the other one behind Zero’s knees before the baller even thought clearly about moving.

“What are you _doing_?” Zero huffed, but his voice was still sleepy, and his hair tousled, and his eyes still fighting to adapt to the living room’s lights – he just looked like an outraged kitten.

“Taking care of my big baby of a boyfriend,” Jude replied, grin widening, as he got up.

Zero glared at him. “Jude, put me the fuck down!”

“Stop wriggling, you’re gonna kick your head,” his boyfriend protested as he was maneuvering through the doorframe of their bedroom, and he unceremoniously dropped Zero on the mattress despite his boyfriend’s protests.

“You’re insane, Kinkade,” Zero grumbled.

Jude grinned down at him, standing by the bed. “You said you liked it when I acted bossy.”

Zero stuck his tongue out and climbed off the bed to head to the bathroom, and Jude followed him. They started brushing their teeth in companionable silence, Jude sitting on the edge of the bathtub, looking up at Zero pensively. Usually, boys were not supposed to grow much past their eighteenth birthday; they could reach something like, half an inch more, and it was already a lot for some of them. But Zero was _not_ the usual kind, he was never doing anything like everybody else, and so Mr. Zero had been granted almost _two_ goddamn inches out of the blue. Jude didn’t know when it had happened. All he knew was that in their senior year, they were the same height, and now they were not anymore.

“Earth to Jude?”

Jude blinked and looked up at Zero, who was glancing at him with questioning eyes. Jude got up and spat in the sink, rinsing his mouth. “Sorry, zoned out.”

“That’s what I figured,” Zero snorted and retreated to the bedroom.

Jude stripped down to a loose tank top and his boxers, and by the time he climbed in bed, Zero was already dozing off again, which didn’t stop him from automatically pulling Jude into a hug until his back was resting against his chest. They had established early in their relationship that Jude was _not_ good at being the bigger spoon. He was a tense sleeper, always hugging his pillow too tight, and Zero had declared that if he was to die suffocated, he wouldn’t mind if it came from Jude, but he rather wanted to reach at least 30.

“You know I love you, right?” Jude whispered, only half-waiting an answer.

“Course I know. Love you too,” Zero mumbled, his face nuzzled his Jude’s neck.

 _Then why don’t you talk to me?_ Jude thought.

*

_“Is that the traffic I’m hearing behind you?”_

Zero turned on the spot, one hand shoved in his pocket, the other pressing his phone to his ear. He was standing next to the backdoor of the hotel, by the loading dock and, further on the right, a passage pulling directly into the traffic. There were probably _tons_ more romantic places to have a conversation with his beloved than a bunch of trashcans and a slightly unwelcoming alley behind a hotel in Salt Lake City. Thing was, he wasn’t supposed to be out there at this hour, and it was only because he had become incredibly good at sneaking out that he hadn’t been caught by one of the nannies — the managers, who were supposed to watch over them.

“Yeah, I thought I could use some fresh air before going to sleep,” Zero said with a casual shrug, but it wasn’t like Jude could see him anyway.

It wasn’t yet 9 but they had been touring around the Arena in which they were supposed to play the following day, then crossed the entire town several times to practice in the training room the managers had managed to find… far, far downtown. If they had been trying to come up with a training place any farther from their hotel, they would most likely be entering another state, Zero had thought bitterly all day long.

Well, to be fair, the location of the training room mattered very little.

What _did_ matter was that he had been shipped off for Valentine’s Day. Not that he particularly _cared_ about that particular date – and for all he knew, Jude didn’t particularly care either — but it was a bitter reminder that someone, somewhere, always had a hand in their relationship, one way or another. Not to mention the fact that he was totally cock-blocked and it _sucked_.

“I miss you,” Zero said finally, more like a groan.

_“I miss you too, babe. But you should go to sleep, ‘cause if you fall face-first in the parking lot, I won’t be there to take you to bed, just so you know.”_

Zero pressed his lips together and let out another small grunt. “I don’t want to walk in at an inappropriate moment.”

Jude laughed and Zero’s stupid heart melted at the sound. _“Tell Molina to just hurry the fuck up or do his dirty business in the bathroom.”_

“Yeah, sounds like a plan.”

Except that he wasn’t sharing his hotel room with Molina, who had not spoken to him in weeks anyway; but with Parker, which Jude didn’t need to know about. If he told him about Parker, he would have to explain why it was a problem to share a room with him, why they had almost started to fight a few days ago, and _why_ Zero felt more uncomfortable around Parker calling his girlfriend than any other couple ( not like there were many though) in the Team, because his girlfriend also happened to be Zero’s ex-girlfriend/not-girlfriend, and _that_ Jude really did not need to know about.

The prospect of going back to sharing a room with an asshole who was treating Nessa (who really was a _great_ girl) like some hot chick from one of Tyga’s video clips, was nowhere near as exciting as talking to Jude; so he found himself dragging out the conversation.

“I’m sorry I had to go.”

 _“It’s okay, Zero, I told you._ ” Jude really _did_ sound like it was _really_ no big deal, which made Zero wonder if he shouldn’t be vexed, after all. “ _Besides, we dodged a bullet your freshman and sophomore years; could have been worse from the beginning.”_

Zero wanted to object but didn’t know what to say — which was more or less his mood in general since the beginning of the day. He chewed on his lower lip. “Maybe I could-”

“ _I said no_.”

Zero groaned and kicked a rock with his foot, half-amused, half-annoyed. “You’re the _only_ person on Earth who doesn’t want a picture of my dick – not to be an arrogant brat of course.”

 _“I could name quite a few others, but that’s beside the point,”_ Jude snorted _. “And we’ve talked about this already. The risk isn’t worth it.”_

Zero hated whenever Jude was more responsible (which was _all_ the time.)  Zero had argued in the past that as long as his face wasn’t in the pic, people would have no means to prove it was _actually him_ , but Jude had just glared at him.

“If a fire breaks out in the kitchen, you’ve got no one to take care of it for you,” he had said, the last time the subject was brought up — the day before, when Zero had to leave. “And there’s already one fire in your kitchen right now and it’s me, a.k.a. your gay boyfriend. You don’t need pics of your dick flying everywhere on top of that.”

They talked some more, Zero made a couple of dirty jokes, Jude snorted, they said ‘I love you’, and soon Zero was contemplating his phone-wallpaper instead of talking to his boyfriend. He sighed and proceeded to get back inside. It was easier to sneak inside than out, so he just walked in and took the elevator to the eighth floor without caring to be discreet. In any case, if one of the managers was to ask what the hell he was doing here, he could just say that he needed some fresh air because Parker was getting on his nerves, which wasn’t even that much of a lie.

Zero had been pissed to find out he had to share a room with the rookie, for three goddamn days, but he did not need much prompting to understand _why._ Neither Zero nor Parker had been reprimanded for their heated argument at practice, and frankly, Zero had been waiting for something to happen, and now he was paying the fucking price for losing his goddamn temper.

The room was quiet when he entered, and he found Parker sprawled on his bed, propped on an elbow as he was going through his phone. Zero’s arrival was welcomed by a cold, green stare and a lifted eyebrow, which was pretty much the scenario every time they were finding themselves together in the same room since they had arrived in this hotel. Zero glared, as always, because most of the time he trusted neither himself nor the words that were about to spill out of his mouth. He dropped his jacket onto his bed and kicked off his shoes. On the mattress, his phone made a small buzzing sound just as he was heading to the bathroom, and Zero bit back a smile at the caller ID.

 **JUDE**. You’ll kick ass tomorrow

Over a year ago, he would have played it smug, but he had come to realize how much these tiny bits of encouragement Jude always had for him mattered these days.

 **ZERO**. how many times can i say ‘i love you’ before turning into a cheesy mess

 **JUDE.** we're far past that point

He smirked to himself.

 **ZERO**. idc

 **ZERO**. i love you

 **JUDE.** i love you more

Zero held back a chuckle, mostly because he could feel Parker staring at him from behind his shoulder every now and then and he didn’t want to look like he was cracking the shell.

 **ZERO.** yup, you’re right

 **ZERO**. too far past that point

 **JUDE**. shut up

 **ZERO**. your wish is my command

 **JUDE.** remember that when i tell you ‘no more pizza’. Now go to sleep.

Zero fired one last ‘good night’ and headed to the bathroom, smiling to himself. The prospect of going back to his life with Jude was by far the most comforting thought he had had since they landed here. For someone like him, who had never had a proper family life, being domestic was reassuring beyond words. It held a special feeling that not even sex or love could fill; it was just the thought of truly being where you belonged. And as bitter and horny as he had been for the last couple of hours, thinking of a dozen different ways he could spend a better Valentine’s Day instead of being shipped off for an away game, Zero found himself craving even the tiniest hug and cold leftovers shared in front of ‘The Big Bang Theory’.

*

Being the responsible one in a relationship sucked so badly.

Honestly, Jude should write a book on the subject, a manual; with _lots_ of volumes.

The worst part of being the responsible one? There was no one to be responsible for him when he didn’t want to be. Which means that when his boyfriend was shipped off and horny, on freaking Valentine’s Day, Jude had to play the part of the responsible boyfriend and tell him that sending nudes was _not_ okay; even though he was dying to see some. Damnit, Jude was goddamn horny too; and he had to isolate himself from the world and drown in his assignments to forget just how much having his boyfriend away, even for two days, sucked really, really bad.

The good part about being the responsible one? None, none whatsoever, but not like he cared, because right now he was sucking air out of his boyfriend’s lungs.

Zero grinned into the kiss. “Can I- at least- get rid of- my- jacket?” every two words separated with another needy kiss.

Jude let go of his lips, leaving trails of kisses along his jawline. “You’ll get rid of much more,” he grunted, and a pleased chuckle escaped from Zero’s mouth.

He had barely given Zero even a second to get inside, before he shoved him against the front door and started to master the part of the Needy Boyfriend™. Usually, he was not the slutty one in this relationship — Zero was high on endorphins and serotonin 100% of the time, courtesy of a lifetime of doping his brain with naturally secreted hormones through sports. But Jude had phases, _needy_ phases. He wasn’t particularly fond of finding himself being compared to an animal in heat, but oh well. His whole brain was chanting _Zero-Zero-Zero-Zero_ as he drew his boyfriend from the front door to their bedroom, leaving a mess of clothes in their wake that he would probably feel embarrassed about later.

Jude fell on the mattress, throwing his arms around Zero’s shoulders as he leaned down over him, and buried his face in Zero’s neck, sucking on the tight, supple tendon. Zero’s skin smelled different, probably from the hotel body wash, and for a moment Jude wondered if that’s what it would always be like. Zero smelling differently each time he would go away. It was a stupid, slightly annoying thought, and he tossed it away as soon as it popped up; he _refused_ to let his mood get ruined by something so silly. The fact that Zero’s tongue was currently tracing every curve of his chest was only for the better, and Jude let out a moan when he started to leave kisses on his hipbone, then the inside of his thigh, slightly bucking up his hips.

“Stop teasing,” Jude hissed, but it sounded more like a whimper and Zero smirked at him knowingly, his ever so stunning eyes darkening in less than a blink.

The blond baller didn’t fight the laugh that escaped from his throat as Jude grabbed him and drew him up impatiently, crashing their mouths in a heated kiss again, with tongues sliding together. Jude's hands wandered over his boyfriend’s toned back, before cupping his neck, and Zero's mouth sucked on Jude's shoulder, leaving his mark. Jude's breath was starting to hitch every now and then as he was trying to handle the pleasure flooding at the pit of his stomach, but Zero’s every touch seemed to _seriously_ complicate the matter. Jude could feel Zero's warm breath tickling over his skin and he closed his eyes, holding back a moan as pleased as was frustrated.

“Don't you dare make me come apart right now,” Jude groaned, flustered.

Zero had that asshole grin of his, but his cheeks were flushed and his lips swollen from the kissing. “I wouldn't dare.”

 _Yeah, my ass_ , Jude thought. Not like he had already done that just for fun in the past, _no_. Jude wasn't in the mood for foreplay and wrapped his legs around Zero's waist, crashing their bodies closer. Zero slid his hand between them but Jude stopped him and intertwined their fingers, resting their joined hands on the pillow next to his head.

"Already taken care of," he breathed, his lips pressed to Zero's neck. He had been on his own for two days without his boyfriend in town; no one was to judge him for waiting eagerly for him to return.

Zero let out a groan. “Fuck, Jude- you're gonna kill me-”

“I will if you don't fuck me right the fuck now, I swear,” Jude panted, voice trembling. Zero heaved a breathless chuckle, because even if he wanted to keep teasing Jude, there was only so much he could stand himself.

Zero brought their mouths together again, keeping Jude busy while he reached for the nightstand with his free hand. They had discussed going bare once or twice since they had gotten back together, just in passing. Jude thought for a moment that maybe that could have been a great way to start Valentine's Day, had they gotten the chance to celebrate in due time. This wasn’t exactly romantic; it was just… one occasion among others. Not that it really mattered, old habits die hard anyway.  Zero halted Jude’s whirling thoughts in their tracks as his hands moved up to gently caress Jude’s sides, his whole body shivering under his boyfriend’s touch. He bucked his hips instinctively as Zero’s fingers curled around his thighs, positioning himself between his legs and slowly breaching his trembling body. Jude threw his head back on the pillow, baring his neck for Zero to mouth at the tender skin, breath hot against his throat as he kept pushing in slowly, making Jude lose every bit of sanity he had left, clutching at the sheets with every inch.

Zero paused for a moment once he was fully inside, his chest heaving hard against Jude's, and they both took a moment to adjust before Zero started to set a pace. Neither intended for it to be particularly rough, but they were done with waiting (two days was far too long, how old were they, 16?) So it wasn't that much of a surprise that Zero's thrusts quickly accelerated, filling the room with Jude's moans as he continued to hit the most sensitive spot inside of him over and over again. Had Jude had any dignity left, he would have asked Zero if he was planning to add this particular scoring capacity to his basketball records someday.  But he quickly set those thoughts aside, and allowed himself to be enraptured by the sensations surrounding him and focus solely on the gorgeous man above him, till Jude was nothing but a sobbing, flushed mess. Cheeky comments would have to wait...

Jude whimpered when he felt Zero's thrusts increasing even more, the baller's hand reaching for him and stroking him in rhythm, and _ah_ , Jude lost track of whatever was happening. There were sloppy kisses and hands and moans and before he even thought about a warning, an erupting sticky mess. He muffled his face in the crook of Zero's neck, feeling like he was thrown off a cliff as pleasure seemed to flood through every single inch of his body. He mouthed his orgasm against Zero's sun-kissed skin, eyes falling shut and heels digging into his boyfriend, body tensing and back arching under a jolt of white-hot pleasure. It was too much and not enough all at once. He wanted to pause this moment to just enjoy it without fearing it would end, and yet he just couldn’t _get enough_ of Zero. His arms were still curled around his shoulders but they were losing their grip, limbs feeling soft, yet achingly taut, as he came down from his high.

Just a couple more thrusts and Zero came too, Jude easing him through his climax with soft kisses and soothing caresses as his boyfriend was thrown over the edge and collapsed on top of him in contented exhaustion. A moment passed, where it was just the two of them curled together, panting and grinning.

“I fucking missed you,” Jude said, lazily glancing up at Zero.

Zero heaved a breathless chuckle, cheeks flushed and eyes blown, and Jude was still dazed to be graced by this sight. No one on the fucking face of Earth should be allowed to be so lucky, it was insane. “Give me five, six minutes and we’re doing it again.”

Jude grinned stupidly, still deep in the post-orgasm bliss, and nuzzled against Zero’s cheek, reaching for a sloppy kiss, his boyfriend’s arms wrapping around him.

Two things happened at once, at this exact moment. There was a sound echoing somewhere in the apartment, and a split-second later, before either of them could make a single move or even _think_ about what they had just heard, Kyle Hart, in all her glory, stormed into the bedroom, making both boys jump out of their skin.

A second — that’s all they needed.

Then Zero started to yell.

 


	15. Chapter 15

“ _WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE_?”

Zero had been yelling for almost five minutes, barely catching a breath, and honestly Jude couldn’t blame him. He had never felt such an urge to _kill someone_ before, in his entire life — and that included eighteen years spent with Oscar Kinkade.

“Stop throwing stuff!” Kyle yelled, raising her arms just in time to protect her face from getting hit by the pillow Zero used as a weapon.

“ _What the fuck are you doing here_?!” Zero shouted again, a murderous glare in his eyes.

It was like everything had crashed, and gone back to normal — the insane side of normal. Several soft, rosy hickeys and Zero’s ruffled hair was the only evidence that successfully made Jude believe they actually had sex two minutes before. Zero dangerously eyed Jude’s pillow now that he had thrown away his own.

“I tried to hold her back, I swear,” Raquel said, letting go of the human shield that was Kyle, and she stepped to the side.

Kyle gave her a look. Zero still looked like he was about to yell some more — withan aim that didn’t miss.

“WHAT ON EARTH MADE YOU THINK YOU COULD BARGE INTO SOMEONE ELSE’S APARTMENT?”

“The front door wasn’t locked,” Kyle mumbled in defense.

Zero and Jude shared a look, and Jude pointed with his chin to cover whatever was starting to go on display as the sheets had been agitated in his anger.

“And you didn’t think that _maybe_ it was an inappropriate moment to walk in?” the baller spat.

“It’s two in the _afternoon_ , how the hell was I supposed to think you’d be in bed?!”

“I DIDN’T WANT YOU TO THINK ANYTHING TO BEGIN WITH”

Jude buried his face in his hands. He was usually sleepy after sex, so the whole orgasm/screaming combo was too much to handle for his somewhat foggy mind.

“Just drop it!” he hissed, cutting them off, and glared at Raquel. “What are you doing here?”

“You guys have become kinda… viral,” she said.

Zero glared at her, and there was honestly not enough fury in the world to match the expression in his eyes. “What the fuck does that _mean_?”

Raquel deadpanned. “It means you’re literally blowing up the internet.”

“ _I-know-what-that-means!_ ”

“Didn’t sound like-”

“Will you two _shut up?_ ”

Jude tried and failed to remember how peaceful and blissfully happy they were ten minutes ago….and also what it felt like to not have his two best friends staring down at his naked self. Kyle retrieved her phone from her back pocket, flicked through it for a second, and stepped close enough for him to see. Jude half-heartedly tucked the sheets even tighter around his lower body. “This happened.”

He stared at a couple of headlines on some website. The most recent entry, just below the vibrant orange title _,_ spread in all black caps: “UCLA: ZERO’S HOMOSEXUALITY CONFIRMED?” On one side, a tiny version of the picture they had taken in the photo booth during Kyle’s birthday. She had put it on her IG account the morning after, with the caption _‘can u believe em’_ , but it wasn’t like Kyle’s account was public. The article had been posted on February 13th, three days ago.

Jude frowned and looked up at Kyle.

“That’s a far cry from becoming viral,” he shrugged.

Leaving aside the fact that the article was claiming that Zero was gay, it wasn’t much. Certainly not enough to storm in like the fucking end of the world was happening downstairs.

Kyle sighed. “That was just the first article, duckling.”

“The first,” Zero repeated.

Kyle and Raquel shared a look and nodded. “Yup. Must be like, fifty more now. Every sports-gossip related website. Basically _any_ sports related website, really.”

Jude blinked a couple of times. He was slow to process over the whole thing, but one thing kept bugging him. The pieces didn’t click. “Why is this such a big deal now? We’ve been together since high school,” he said.

Raquel winced. “I guess you’re becoming a big deal? ...With the Tournament and all.”

Jude frowned, looking at Zero. “But you’re not even getting drafted this year.”

Kyle shrugged. “That doesn’t mean anything these days. Can you imagine those bloggers, who spend their time writing about cheated trophy wives, and suddenly they stumble on this?” and she pointed out at Jude.

Zero glared again. “I would very much appreciate for everybody to stop meddling in my love life. Now can you please have the decency to wait outside while we at _least_ clean up and get dressed?”

Jude wanted to whine because he _so_ didn’t want to get up. They had ruined the mood for over a century but he could use a nap anyway.

“You sure?” Kyle asked innocently. “Teen-Raquel would have sold her soul to see what’s under the blanket.”

Raquel’s eyes widened and she immediately proceeded to push Kyle out of the bedroom, cheeks burning red, and the door slamming behind them.

The bedroom fell silent, the girls’ bickering acting as white noise as they headed out toward the living room.

“What do they say? Can’t choose your family but you can choose your friends?” Zero groaned.

Jude hummed in response.

“I definitely should have chosen better,” Zero grumbled as he dropped himself back on the mattress.

*

Fifteen minutes and a shower later (the girls had ruined the mood to the point where they even kept their hands to themselves in the shower), they joined Kyle and Raquel in the kitchen. They scrolled through the whole list of sports websites they all knew about on Zero’s laptop, but Zero was talking less and less.

He was making the headlines… For his sexuality… In 2021, in the US.

And he wasn’t even pro yet.

Kyle cleared her throat. “So, uh, have you guys checked your phones yet?”

“No, we were busy,” they said nearly in unison.

Kyle looked like she was _embarrassed_. Zero was practically sure ten seconds ago that embarrassment wasn’t even part of her vocabulary, let alone her emotional spectrum. He groaned and reached for his phone. As soon as he turned it on, a feverish buzzing sound invaded the room, and the four of them crowded around.

“Holy shit,” Zero muttered, astonished, as he tried to read the number of notifications on his IG feed. “Is it-”

“Yeah,” Raquel said.

“That’s a fucking _lot_ ,” Zero sputtered, eyes growing wide over the _thousands_ of notifications.

Jude watched over Zero’s shoulder as a couple more kept showing up on his boyfriend’s various social media accounts.

“I told you to turn your IG private back in fucking _September_ ,” Kyle protested.

“I didn’t think people would go crazy _now_!”

Raquel rolled her eyes. “Shut it down, idiot!”

“Are you _insane_?” Kyle hissed, looking at her in horror behind Zero’s back. “It’s only going to make things worse!”

Zero didn’t know how it could possibly get _worse_ than sports gossip blogs reporting his ‘homosexuality’ and his friends showing up in his bedroom literally five seconds after his last orgasm. In any case, he didn’t want to know, because right now the bar was set pretty high.

Thing was, he must have screwed up pretty badly in another life, because fucking fate was constantly proving him wrong — about practically anything. Think your life can’t get worse than being stuck with abusive trash bags for foster parents? Here’s a murder attempt and a goddamn stabbing wound. Think that your boyfriend’s father’s call to send him away to some stupid conversion camp means losing him? Here, watch your boyfriend’s heart stop beating in a fucking pool. Think that having people ranting about your homosexuality as a disease and a death sentence is creepy? Here, watch your boyfriend’s name spread all across the internet in fucking big caps like the fucking serpent that corrupted humankind. Yep, by the end of the week, Jude’s name was in every article that talked about Zero, and the baller fucking hated that beyond words.

His IG posts had received an insane amount of notifications these past few days and his number of followers had at least tripled and reached an absolutely insane 500k _._ Eventually, he had to turn it private after a bunch of particularly graphic death threats started flooding in among the stupid, supportive comments fawning over ‘the cute couple’ he and Jude were. Jude and Kyle disagreed on his decision — Jude had insisted that it wasn’t healthy to keep it open, while Kyle went on and on about the fact that it would break the ties with Zero’s supporters — but in the end, Zero tried to placate both by stating that he could still turn it public again if things started to settle. As for Twitter and Facebook, both were pretty much a war zone and Zero had to forget about catching up on his accounts there.

He did succumb to temptation one evening, when Jude was in the shower, only to slam his laptop shut literally ten seconds later, after reading a dozen private messages urging him to throw himself off the nearest bridge. When he woke up the next morning, his heart was beating fast and his whole body shivering from the shitty dream he had, and as he dragged himself to the bathroom, he slowly came to terms with the fact that, yep, things could get a lot worse.

And also that he was so, so very screwed.

Since he basically had no one to handle it for him (he couldn’t stop dreaming about a Pope & Associates-like crisis unit), he went to the one and only person he knew who had, somehow, been once in his shoes. That’s how he basically found himself frying under Lionel Hemsworth’s X-Ray vision while he was still fidgeting in the doorway of her duplex.

“I need your help.”

Lionel cocked her head, staring at him, clearly unimpressed. “Hello to you too,” she sneered, resting her hand on her hip.

Zero winced, and Lionel eventually agreed to step out of the way to let him in. “What can I do for you?” she asked innocently, leading him to the living room.

“How did you get through the media blast when you were married to Pete?”

She frowned slightly. “Media blast? What do you call a media blast?”

“All my social media accounts are getting saturated on literally _every level_ ,” Zero blurted out. “My name is a fucking hot topic and I wouldn’t care, I mean, I’m fine with it, if it can help my career let’s get started; but now Jude’s name is out there too and I don’t- I didn’t sign up for that. Jude didn’t sign up for that.”

Lionel studied him for a moment. “My Jude isn’t some silly, giggling teenage girl who got infatuated with a baller without thinking about the consequences.”

“But it was not supposed to happen like that!” Zero protested, pissed.

“Really?” Lionel raised a perfect eyebrow. “And tell me exactly how did you envision your life in the NBA without your pretty boyfriend becoming public knowledge, because as far as I’m concerned, no one came out in the NBA before 2014.”

“I-I _did_ know it was a possibility. But… I thought- I thought it was okay. Jude was there the whole time for _two_ _years_. Why does it bother people now? What has changed for them to go all wild about it?”

Lionel heaved a long sigh, then crossed her legs and leaned a bit forward. “Sometimes it just happens,” she said with a shrug. “People get on the loop about one topic for a while, and there’s all the frenzy, and all the consequences, and then eventually it dies down; and people don’t even realize they’ve been turning someone’s life into a living hell the majority of the time. Welcome to Hollywood and welcome to America. Now suck it up.”

Zero’s eyes widened as he looked up at her. She glanced at him, almost defiantly.

“Great, you just hate me too, right?” he grumbled.

“Oh, please. Why would I hate on a kid?” she scoffed.

_I’m twenty, I’m not a kid_ , he wanted to add, but even in his head he realized how childish that sounded.

“Because I broke Jude’s heart last year,” he mumbled sheepishly.

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, first, he never told me exactly what happened between the two of you, and since you didn’t tell your mom either, we kind of started to think it was more like a mutual break-up. No hard feelings. Second, you came to me for advice and for help. If you wanted comfort, you would have gone to Allie. So here’s the truth: you are a hot topic. You will be a hot topic for a while. How you react, or whether you react at all, will make a big difference on the outcome.”

Zero chewed at his bottom lip. “What if I can’t react?”

Lionel seemed to give it some thought. “Things will settle. I know it’s easier said than done, but things will be fine. People will get used to it and deal with it with various degrees of genuineness. The person you share your life with matters very little in the long run, and people will realize that in time. It just needs a little adjustment for the flock of narrow-minded.”

“You make it sound like it’s easy,” Zero said, discouraged.

“It’s not. Back in the day when I was dating Pete, the moment I was a hot topic myself, social media was practically non-existent. Now it’s different. Their shots are directed right at you and there’s nothing you can do about that. You’ve been thrown into the deep end head first. Most athletes get their first massive coverage when they are already pros, but you kind of have a thing for starting big, right?”

Zero ran a hand through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck. Why couldn’t he just do things like everybody else? Why did everything always have to be goddamn s _pecial_ when it was about him?

Lionel gave him a pat on the shoulder. “It’s gonna be fine. Let’s see what we can do in terms of damage control.”

*

Over two weeks away from March Madness, Jude had made peace with the fact that he would hardly see his boyfriend for over a month; unless the Bruins, of course, managed to get through the First Round. Officially, it was the third year he got to see the Tournament from the inside, but in complete honesty, it was the first year it really mattered. Zero had hardly left the bench during his freshman year and had been deprived of playing in the Tournament due to his injured shoulder his sophomore year. Jude was still trying to convince Zero that something would surely befall on someone else and drive the attention away from him, them, before the First round. But as the days went on, he realized that it would take something really big to be considered nearly as relevant as an out and proud NCAA Team Captain.

Lionel, Samuel and Zero’s aunt Celia had tried to come up with various and creative ways to control the outcome of the backlash. Robbie had installed a couple of security software programs on their social media accounts so they could, among other things, approve posts they were tagged in before they were shared to their walls. According to Zero’s uncle, they were safeguards that were supposed to help them keep a ‘solid boundary between work and personal life’. He also installed various filters on Zero’s Twitter account, which at least gave him the opportunity to peek at the new content without the risk of stumbling on hateful comments and private messages. As for those, Lionel and Samuel were insistent on the fact that neither Jude nor Zero were _ever_ supposed to answer any of the comments.

Jude felt slightly offended that his stepmom could think he would be so stupid to do that, but after almost three weeks of death threats and nagging comments, he _might_ have been dangerously on the verge of firing something back. Watching anonymous people destroy his boyfriend on a daily basis was by far the hardest thing that Jude had ever been confronted with. Zero was tense and agitated pretty much all the time, even when he was sleeping, so much that he would literally jump on the spot if Jude was dropping something in the sink or simply popping behind him out of nowhere. Needless to say that the atmosphere in the flat had frankly become somber at times.

Jude was busy emptying take-out boxes when Zero stormed inside the following Monday, bitterly kicking off his shoes and shrugging off his jacket before dropping himself on one of the kitchen stools, all in less than five seconds, just enough to almost cause Jude to have a heart attack.

“Should I ask?” Jude enquired slowly after a moment had passed. He wasn’t sure whether it was one of those days where it was safer to ask things or not talk at all.

“I need a hug first,” Zero said without looking, shoulders slumped.

Jude closed the foam food box he was holding before he rounded the kitchen counter to wrap his arms around his boyfriend. The baller buried his face in Jude’s chest, arms enveloping his waist, and Jude felt his heartbeat picking up.

Oh. That couldn’t be good.

“I clashed with Alford,” he muttered, face pressed against Jude. His voice sent vibrations through his whole body and Jude tried to keep his mind clear. He _was_ worried. He just hoped Zero wouldn’t mind him being worried with his pants growing tighter, because if he was insisting on pursuing the conversation this way, that sure as hell threatened to happen soon.

Jude cursed, wincing, more to himself than to Zero who wasn’t looking anyway. “What happened?”

“He’s pissed because my name is everywhere. He thinks it’s gonna be trouble for the tournament.”

Jude’s arms stiffened slightly. “But it’s not like you’re asking for it.”

Zero had a bitter chuckle. “That’s what I said! He just says that I have to ‘stop making waves’ and ‘distracting the Team’. I swear I almost threw up.”

Jude began running his fingers through his hair, and he felt Zero relaxing a little. Anger seemed to fade away at the soothing gesture.

“And how did it go with the guys?” Jude asked finally after a minute.

“I don’t care about them,” Zero groaned. He looked up at Jude, resting his chin on his boyfriend’s chest with a sigh. “I just- I _know_ sometimes I screw up and that I can be a piece of shit. But _fuck_ , I-I just- I’m literally minding my own business. Why can’t people just do the fucking same?”

Jude cupped his face with his left hand. Zero’s eyes were almost translucent, he looked like a kicked puppy. He softly reached for Zero’s wrists behind his back and forced him to release them so he could sit next to him on a kitchen stool. “You’re not a piece of shit,” he said, gently holding Zero’s hands. “You’re the best player on that team and one of the best players in America. You’re Kyle’s and Terrence’s and Derek’s best friend. You’re the best big brother ever to Laura, and you’re Robbie’s and Candace’s favorite nephew. You’re my boyfriend and the most important person in the world to me,” he said quietly, leaning forward a bit. “That’s what you are. That’s who you are. No one has the right to make you feel like shit, not anymore.”

Zero pressed his lips together and nodded slightly. Jude wanted him to make a joke, to make a stupid comment, to tease him for how sappy he was being. _I’m not going to marry you today, Kinkade_. Instead, he was being awfully silent. He seemed so defeated, so lost… Jude wanted so badly to fix it, but he had no idea how.  All he could do now was let go of his hands to slowly cup his neck, pulling him in for a soft kiss.


	16. Chapter 16

_2:58 AM._

Zero had to double-check the clock on his nightstand, squinting his eyes to read the red numbers. It took him a second to register why the hell he was waking up at this hour, but he soon found the answer as he turned over to find an empty bed. Jude’s pillow was cold, and so was his spot. With a frown on his sleepy face, Zero sat up, rubbing his eyes.

He could spot a ray of light, probably coming from the living-room, under the closed door of their bedroom — which was one more clue that it had been a long time since his boyfriend had woken up; usually they didn’t close the door.

Zero reached for the shirt he was wearing earlier and put it on over his boxer briefs, before climbing off the bed to investigate the matter. The light didn’t come from the living room but from the kitchen.  Zero blinked hard as he walked in to find Jude sitting by the kitchen half-counter, a whole bunch of paper and notes covering the hardwood surface.

“Jude?” He asked, blinking some more, as he ran a hand through his hair.

His boyfriend turned in his seat, slightly startled. “Oh hey, I’m so sorry I woke you up,” he mumbled, sheepishly.

Zero got closer. “’s okay. What’s wrong?”

Jude’s eyes were slightly red, probably from his lack of sleep. “I- uh, I’ve got that exam soon and I need to catch up on some stuff.”

“At 3AM?”

Jude winced. “I kinda need every goddamn hour left.”

“Jude, you need to sleep.”

“You know how I work, I won’t be able to sleep until all that stuff is imprinted right here,” Jude said with a sigh, pointing at his forehead.

“I do know how you work,” Zero said patiently, perching himself on the stool next to Jude’s, “but I also know you need to sleep to keep focus. Remember what you tell me, when I try to overextend myself?”

Jude shrugged and he went back to his papers for a moment, before looking back up.

“How do you even do it?” Jude asked, and it seemed genuinely serious, so much that Zero started to feel self-conscious — which only happened with three people on this planet: his Grandfather, his uncle Benjamin, and Jude. “How do you even manage to be Captain _and_ study at the same time?”

Zero’s eyes fell onto the hardwood of the countertop. He had never been exactly _embarrassed_ about his grades; it had been a long acknowledged truth that Jude was a smartass. If anything, Zero’s poor grades in algebra had permitted him to get closer to the person who shared his life now. He wasn’t a complete academic fucker _either_ ; he was studying and working his ass off, at least as much as it was humanly possible for him. But there was only so much he could do. He knew Jude wasn’t blind or clueless; he probably noticed that Zero was spending far less time working on his assignments or his extra-credits than what he used to during his first two years here. And yet the subject had always been avoided… Until now.

“I kinda get a little… _bonus_ , for being Captain,” Zero said quietly without looking at Jude.

“A bonus,” he repeated.

Zero nodded in silence; then finally gathered enough courage to look up. “I get the detailed lecture schedule for most of my courses at the beginning of the semester, so I can figure out the classes I can skip and those I probably shouldn’t; assignments too. I get them a few days ahead of the other students. Most of my exams are spent like everybody else, but I’m not sure I’d reach half of the grade I get at the end with any other professor but my own.”

There was a short silence. “That’s… useful,” Jude said.

Zero snorted. “You can say that I’m a fraud, it’s okay.”

Jude gave him a small slap on his knee. “Hey, don’t say that. You’re not a fraud.”

Zero shrugged. “Not sure everyone would agree with you.”

“Good thing I don’t care about what ‘everyone’ says,” Jude retorted with a soft smirk. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Zero gave it a thought and sighed. “I guess I just didn’t want you to think less of me. Turns out I’m just a spoiled brat.”

“Yeah, but you’re my spoiled brat,” Jude said, leaning forward to plant a peck on his lips, and Zero felt his heart flicker lovingly. His boyfriend glanced at the clock on his phone. “Now go back to sleep. I promise I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Zero huffed and reached for another kiss after standing up. He was turning back to retreat to the bedroom; but when he glanced back behind his shoulder and saw Jude sitting by the counter, Zero felt his heart tighten, almost as if they were separated by an entire ocean. The bed wasn’t that appealing without Jude in it. He couldn’t deny the fact that once again, Zero was just walking away after Jude had taken the time to reassure him about stupid insecurities of his.

What a lousy boyfriend he was.

He turned and came back to the kitchen. Jude looked up from his notes with questioning eyes as Zero started methodically collecting all the revision sheets and various notepads. “What are you doing?”

“Helping out. Come with me,” he demanded, and strangely enough, Jude _obeyed_ — which only happened maybe once in a blue moon.

Zero took him by the hand and drew him to the bedroom, then dropped it all on the bed. Jude was still obviously skeptical when they settled in. Zero picked up a revision sheet.

“Okay, what can you tell me about…” he stopped, then his eyes widened. “What the hell is _econometrics_?”

*

Jude blinked in disbelief, and stared at the two students standing in front of him. “You... You want to do _what_?”

Chandler Osborne and LaTanya Freeman shared a look, and grinned widely. They had intercepted him just as he was stepping out of one of the coffee shops on Campus, and Jude couldn’t help but feel like everything looked awfully staged.

“We want to throw a party,” the guy said.

“Not just a party — the party of the decade,” the girl corrected, and she looked very serious (not to say bossy) all of a sudden.

Was planning parties what regular students were spending their days doing? Chandler probably saw that Jude wasn’t particularly impressed by the idea, and he switched tactics.

“Look, your boyfriend is the first openly queer Captain in the NCAA Tournament. It’s a big deal, and it’s happening right here, right now. This is _huge_ ,” he said, looking Jude right in the eye.

Jude nearly scoffed. Granted, they looked persuasive, but to him it sounded as if they had trained before, using the ten-tips to bargain efficiently.

LaTanya nodded to the words of her fellow student. “We need to celebrate this; we need to show people that things are finally changing.”

Jude huffed derisively. “I'm not sure Zero would feel comfortable being exposed like that. He’s really not... _that_ kind of queer baller.”

_He’s not the kind of queer baller you’re looking for_. To be honest, Jude had never heard Zero referring to himself as queer, nor showing any sign of interest for queer-related stuff. If anything, as far as Jude was concerned, Zero didn’t _mind_ being all those things, but that was _very_ different than being proud to be. LaTanya and Chandler shared another glance, and she waved dismissively.

“Oh come on, he’s a showman. All athletes are,” she said haughtily, running her fingers through her sophisticated, choppy haircut. “He likes to be under the spotlight and _this_ will get him massive coverage if it is handled by the right people. That’s all.”

Jude looked at them sternly. “Let me guess, you are the right people?”

Chandler chuckled. “Who better than the President of the Delta Lambda Phi and the President of the Gamma Rho Lambda can pull this off?”

There was something equally proud and threatening in the way Osborne was using these titles — those of the gay fraternity and the lesbian sorority. Was there an actual threat behind all this sympathy? Jude couldn’t tell, it had been a while since people acted genuine and selfless about him and Zero — assuming their approach was selfless, this was obviously not.

Jude quirked a brow. “You,” he said, pointing at Chandler with his Styrofoam cup, “I get why you’re... helping. Now why would _you_ ,” he then pointed at LaTanya, “wanna be part of it?”

“You think queer guys are the only ones to have a rough time in the NCAA?” she sneered. “We’re hoping to help lesbians as well. They’ve been pretty mistreated these past few years and it’s not like anybody cares to notice.”

Chandler nodded and looked at Jude. “See? This is not just about Zero. This is about everybody he can help as well.”

Jude sighed. “I told you, he’s not really interested in being a poster-boy.”

“What about you?” LaTanya asked, crossing her arms on her chest, somewhat defiantly.

Jude’s eyes fell on her. “Me?” His eyebrows flew up, slightly taken aback.

“We’re not interested in just having a queer Captain if it means his boyfriend is kept in the shadows,” Chandler shrugged.

The fact that they thought they were entitled to put _conditions_ on Zero was astonishing. Jude snorted. “I’m fine where I am, thank you. I don’t need you to start campaigning for me or anything.”

LaTanya leaned slightly forward, fixing her deep-brown eyes on him. “But you’re great. People need to know about you too.”

“You don’t even know me!”

She shrugged. “We know that you’re good enough for UCLA’s basketball team Captain to come out for you. That’s just how great you are.”

Before he could answer, Chandler looked at his phone. “Look, we want it to be a great moment. What is happening to Zero can be so much more than just a coincidence,” he said again. “The party could be the beginning of something big, something important. But right now, we just want to show him that we support him and that he doesn’t have to go through it alone.”

“That both of you don’t have to go through it alone,” LaTanya added and Chandler nodded. “It’s just a party. What wrong could a gay party do?”

*

“What the hell is wrong with them, I’m not _gay_!” Zero blurted out.

What’s the recipe for happiness in your relationship? Your tensed self, your pissed off and overstressed boyfriend, a bunch of people and their stupid ideas. They had been fighting for over twenty minutes, as soon as the words “party”, “Gay fraternities” and “you” were brought up. 

Jude’s jawline tensed. “Well, I am. Sorry that it’s such a turn off,” he replied coldly.

Zero visibly flinched and anger seemed to fade away. “Jude, I didn’t mean to-”

“Of course, because you never mean to be offensive,” Jude snapped bitterly, shaking his head, as he left the bathroom for the bedroom. 

Zero reached out for him and wrapped his arms around him before Jude could seriously think about escaping from his grip.

“Do you _mind_ getting your hands off me?” Jude asked bluntly. It wasn’t like Zero was seriously preventing him from moving, though.

“Yes, I do mind,” Zero replied, and he tightened his grip around him. “I’m sorry I was rude to you. I just- I didn’t come out for them to make a poster-boy of me.”

_Then why did you come out_? Because he sure knew something like that would happen someday, if not as an NCAA player, at least as an NBA player. Zero was many things, but clueless was not one of them. He was studying marketing, for God’s sake; he was supposed to have taken business strategy courses!

“I came out for you, and for me, because I love you and because you deserve to be acknowledged as the one I love,” Zero said, voice softer but more insisting.

Despite the argument and the fact that Jude was pretty much _not_ satisfied by the way Zero kept brutally pointing out he was not gay, he felt his heart pound in his chest. Zero’s warm breath was brushing his skin and he felt a big part of his anger fading away.

“I may be a lousy gay,” Jude said, “but I didn’t refuse to bow my head to my father for nothing.” He couldn’t help the small hitch in his voice whenever he mentioned that part of his life; it was still humiliating and hurtful. Being treated like that by your own father was something Jude wished on literally no one on this goddamn planet.

“Of course not.” Zero let go of him and Jude sighed, sitting at the foot of the bed. “You do know I love you, right?” Zero insisted, seeking eye-contact, and Jude eventually surrendered.

“I do. I just think you don’t have enough support to start being picky with the little you get.”

_Starting with your boyfriend_ , he barely restrained himself from saying.

Zero pressed his lips together, and sat next to him. “That’s the problem,” he admitted, staring down at his hands. “I told you Alford doesn’t like the idea that people are talking about me and… and whoever I’m dating, more than the game itself. This party…”

“…would push you even more under the spotlight,” Jude finished.

If Zero agreed to that party, the organizers would make sure everybody on Earth knew about it and Zero would become the face of the Queer Movement on Campus, whether he wanted it or not. Thus pissing off his Coach— the one person who was moderating his career, his scholarship and his visibility on court, not to mention his Captainship. If he refused, it would appease Alford for a time, but piss off the Queer fraternities and sororities of the Campus, and Jude wasn’t sure it was good for his boyfriend either.

There was silence as they were both processing.

Jude heaved a sigh. “The First Round. It could help if you win the First Round,” he said after a while.

Zero looked at him puzzled. Under any other circumstances, Jude would have laughed because it was clearly _what the fuck do you think I’ll be doing on Court_ written across his face.

“If you win the First Round, you stay in the Tournament. The Team gets too busy, the players too watched over; and you’re literally too far, geographically speaking, to be in town,” he said, then paused for a second before adding: “That means every party will be off the table anyway for at least three weeks.”

“That means the Gay Ambassadors will have to wait,” Zero summed up, and Jude nodded.

“That means we have three more weeks to think ahead if the problem doesn’t solve itself by then,” Jude completed.

Zero seemed a little less discouraged and pissed as he was a few moments before, even smiling a little. “That’s great, right?”

“Awesome,” Jude replied sternly. He motioned behind to reach his side of the bed without quite looking at Zero. 

He didn’t know why, but he felt annoyed and maybe a little bitter at the way the conversation turned out. He didn’t even care about that stupid party. If anything he felt like it was awfully cliché, and for someone like him, who was never particularly keen on being the center of the attention, being celebrated for his _sexuality_ was literally alien and slightly… yeah, slightly weird.

So what was this fucking feeling about?

*

Zero didn’t worry much at first when he received the notification that the head dietitian of the team wanted to see him. He had seen the woman only a handful of times since he started on the team, mostly during his freshman year. Rookies were getting several appointments when they joined, to set all the diet plans and so forth, and then it was mainly two appointments a year — one before the season started, and one just before March Madness. It was generally a prerequisite that the guys pretended not to take seriously, because, honestly they were doing just fine.

But as Zero was now sitting in the office facing Janet Corelli, a slender and athletic brunette in her thirties, he was starting to think that he should probably have expected something serious.

“I don’t see what’s funny here, Zero,” the woman said seriously.

He stopped laughing, because he had some decency, but he didn’t bother hiding the scornful grin on his face. “Oh come _on,”_ he drawled. “Don’t you think you’re being a little bit dramatic?”

Janet eyed him seriously before folding her hands on her desk. “Okay. Let me give this to you straight. You’re underweight.”

“It happens to a lot of ballers,” Zero shrugged, unfazed.

Like, half the team was underweight. Probably half the players in the _NBA_ were underweight. It left one to wonder who the hell had set the average requirements in the first place, honestly.

“But _you_ ’ve reached a critical point. You’re 6’2”-”

“6’3”,” Zero corrected, which earned him an annoyed glance.

“You’re 6’2” without your shoes. Your ideal weight should be between 200 and 210. See, we’re already _not_ picky because all bodies are different. But now you’ve dropped below 160. Remember what your weight used to be, two years ago, at about the same period?” Janet asked.

“Okay, maybe I didn’t really pay _much_ attention,” Zero groaned, waving dismissively. “But it doesn’t mean anyone has to overreact about it.”

The dietitian sighed. “Zero, I’m serious, and so is your Coach. I’ve been trying to come up with another diet plan for you to gain some weight, but that’s not going to be enough. You should have taken this seriously months ago.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

Janet put her glasses back on her nose and checked a paper on display on her desk. “You’re a small forward,” she said matter-of-factly before looking back at him. “You need to gain back the muscle mass you’ve started to lose for the past few months. You’re running an average 5 to 6 miles per game, it’s more than your body can handle right now, and I’m pretty sure you feel it too. You’re exhausted and that affects your performance, hence why I was summoned by your Coach to put up a new plan.”

Zero snorted. “So what, I gotta eat extra-fat food now?”

She didn’t even break a smile. “Whatever you call it, you need to reach at least 4500 calories per day.”

He let out a small groan and ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. “What if I don’t get out of the… _underweight zone_?” he asked, barely restraining himself from miming the quotation marks. “Do you think it could impact my career, say, in the coming year?”

He was _fine_. There was nothing to fuss about, certainly not big words and big worries. Rumors started this way; it always took ten days to spread and ten years to repair.

“Not directly,” Janet conceded, and he felt a bit relieved. “Look, my job is only to help you on a very nutritional level. What you eat, when you eat, what to eat when you lift weights or when you run drills, what supplements you take and when you take them. That’s my job. But I’m not a therapist.”

“I don’t need a therapist.”

“Zero, this is important. This is career-related. You’re not just underweight; you’re on the verge of anorexia. There is nothing funny about that,” she stated sternly, making him roll his eyes.

She talked some more about diet plans, suggesting several meals that were already making Zero wince in expectation, and then finally let him go. The only good thing about that appointment was that he was off the hook earlier than usual, and he went home straight away. Jude barely blinked at all when Zero proceeded to recount to him what had happened with Corelli.

“You don’t look surprised,” Zero said.

Jude gave him a pointed look. “That’s because I’m not. Seriously, you expected me not to notice that you’ve basically stopped eating and that last time you bought clothes, you chose them almost two sizes smaller?”

Zero winced and looked at his feet. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, you idiot,” Jude grumbled. He hovered in the kitchen and picked a menu among those that they were keeping on the side of the fridge. “That stupid behavior of yours stops tonight.”

Zero pulled a face. It wasn’t some stupid eating disorder that had him lose all this weight; besides all the stress and the added pressure of that stupid internet thing these past few weeks, he just didn’t _like_ eating. The process was long, and _boring_ , and useless. Sure, it kept you alive but it was hella time-consuming, like seriously? No matter how hard people would try, he was still pretty sure he would never like eating at all.

“You make it sound like I’m a kid,” Zero protested, pouting.

Jude stared at him. “That’s because you are behaving like one. You will gain back some weight,” he said, sounding rather determined as he motioned closer to his boyfriend, the menu still in his hand, “and if I have to literally _feed you_ , I will.”

“Yeah, about that…” Zero chewed at his bottom lip. “I will have to go back to the dorm for a little while.”

Jude’s face fell. “What? Why?”

Zero gave him an apologetic look. “The Tournament fuss will start: interviews, stupid portrayals, and other stuff. Not to mention that practice will go insane and the schedule will be wild. Given the situation and the state of my relationship with literally _everyone_ in the NCAA right now…It’s better if I act like I’ve got nothing to hide.”

It took Jude only five seconds to recompose himself, but it was five seconds of pure guilt for Zero. “Ah. Yeah. Sure,” Jude said quietly; then he forced a tight smile. “Makes sense. When do you leave?”

Zero gave it a thought. “Two weeks? I just want to avoid any extra shit, really.”

Jude nodded and Zero stepped behind the countertop and softly nuzzled at his boyfriend’s neck, planting a peck below his ear, before reaching for the menu.

“Italian food it is,” he said, retrieving his phone from his pocket. He dialed the number of the delivery service. “Lasagnas, I suppose?”

Jude shrugged and turned to him, leaning back against the countertop. “Just order whatever you want.”

Zero smirked, phone pressed to his ear. “Nachos, lasagna, me,” he said, showing three fingers. “The three things in life that makes your eyes sparkle.”

Jude snorted and shook his head. “You put yourself after the food; your ego is getting better.”

Zero stuck his tongue out. “What can I do, you put me on a pedestal, I can’t…” He was interrupted by the lady on the other of the line, which eventually made Jude break a smile as he exited the kitchen.

Zero couldn’t help a small sigh.

Next month promised to be a very, very long one.


	17. Chapter 17

The paper fell on Jude’s desk with a soft hush, but the mark on it was a screaming red ‘ _C’._ Jude looked up to the pointed stare of his teacher, a plump woman in her forties with frizzy brown hair, called Mrs. Vargas. She was already tough to deal with back when she was only teaching macroeconomics in his freshman year, but now she was teaching econometrics, and she had _high_ expectations on the matter. Expectations that Jude had obviously failed to fulfill, if the acrimonious letter on his assignment was any indication.

“Celebrity doesn’t make up for ignorance and laziness, Mr. Kinkade,” she said with her fake-sweet tone that made Jude want to rip her apart. “Maybe it’s time to consider that breakthrough of yours as a new-found path in Human Sciences.”

Several people laughed in the background and Jude glared bitterly at his assignment, while Vargas was hovering around to talk to other students. It had been his daily life for about two weeks now. It was highly annoying and very frustrating. Vargas wasn’t the only one who was finding the fact that his personal story going viral wasn’t humiliating enough, he had received such comments from at least two other teachers (‘Mr. Kinkade, if you are not already busy with your fan club online, would you be kind enough to start today’s lecture?’, ‘Mr. Kinkade, I do not doubt your personal charm but it will take more than a popular boyfriend to put up a decent business plan for that particular case study.’); and the worst part was that Jude couldn’t bite back, no matter how much he wanted to. When the teachers were starting to behave like kids, what was expected of their students? They were just as bad. The few remaining minutes saw him sulking behind his desk, and when the class was over, he went straight for the door instead of trying to negotiate for extra credit like he should be doing. Vargas most likely thought the same, because he could feel her disapproving glare on his back as he exited the classroom.

The excitement of a new Tournament had started to win the whole Campus over by the last few days of February. Jude, for his part, was lost in a sea of assignments, extra-credit, and dangerously on the verge of becoming addicted to caffeine. The closer they were getting to March Madness, the farther Zero seemed to be going. First it would be the dorm; then he would leave the city for God knew how long. At times, Jude wondered if he had become too clingy, because the prospect of saying goodbye to him seemed really difficult already.

After their conversation about the gay party, Jude had to tell Osborne and Freeman that it was out of the question before the Tournament. There was no polite way to tell them to back off, but he tried his best to make his intentions clear, which probably explained why he was now going to another coffee shop. He was supposed to catch up with Karen, a fellow student, to work on a financial market study. It was still fairly early in the afternoon and the place was literally packed, buzzing with conversations and orders being taken. The sentence he had been reading at least fifteen times, desperately refused to make any sense at all; and as Jude glanced at his phone, he caught a pair of dark eyes blatantly staring at him. The dark eyes belonged to a girl with perfectly bow-shaped lips curled into a permanent pout, wearing her dark-brown hair in two Dutch braids.

_Chrissy Schneider._

Jude sighed inwardly. It wasn’t the first time in his life that he was dealing with one of Zero’s exes; Sadie Sinclair, in high school, had been the first of many. Was he jealous? Absolutely. But he was getting better at prioritizing. Zero had sex with a bunch of people during their break-up, and Jude was making a point to not get _too bothered_ if said booty-call had lasted less than a week — and many fit in that category, thanks to his lovely slut of a boyfriend. It didn’t mean it was easy; it didn’t mean Jude didn’t want to slap some right across the face, and God knew he wasn’t a violent person. But all in all, he was handling it.

This is why Chrissy Schneider should definitely  _not_  have been a big deal. She wasn’t that famous across the Campus, but although she was of tiny stature, she was one tough bitch to deal with. She had entered the Bruins’ Cheerleading Team over a year before, and had since then known some kind of credibility as a performer; but as far as Jude was concerned, it didn’t make her royalty. Though that is probably why, at some point, she had set her sights on Zero, although she aimed considerably off. She was one of those people who fully embraced the whole college experience, probably believing that the patchwork forged by messy relationships on campus was the way relationships worked in the actual world. Jude, for his part, merely considered college as an inconvenience along the way, something you had to go through, but move on once it was over. 

It was about the only thing that differentiated Chrissy and Jude as students. Both could prove to be strong-minded, accomplished, ambitious, and never to leave the ring without a good fight. In the course of their two and a half years as economics undergrads, they had often competed in various fields; including a particularly intense debate at the beginning of their sophomore year. The fact that one of them happened to be a fling and the other one the actual boyfriend of the same popular basketball team Captain, probably created the perfect storm for drama. Thing was, Jude was generally preoccupied, and if there were signs pointing at it, he obviously missed them. 

“Hasn’t anybody ever told you staring is rude?” Jude eventually said after a minute of glaring, when Chrissy hadn’t looked remotely ashamed at being caught.

She was leaning against one of the tables, half sitting on the side with several friends of hers, and it was a mystery that a waiter hadn’t shooed her away already. “Aww, Kinkade, what’s wrong?” she cooed mockingly, leaning closer in his direction. “Spent too much time lurking your pathetic way back into Zero’s pants to study properly?”

He smiled coldly. “Sorry to disappoint, but whatever happens in his pants is none of your business.”

“Sounds like you’re jealous,” she said, faking surprise, then the smirk was back all over again. “How do you cope with the fact that half the campus had him, by the way?” she asked, cocking her head. “I asked around, you know, and it’s true he’s got that riding kink apparently. Funny thing right?”

She chuckled and Jude thought ‘ _nope_ ’. He wasn’t going to do that. He stood up and started gathering his stuff. “You know what? Keep your shit to yourself and have a nice day.”

He wished he could just stride out of the place, but there were so many people that he could hardly walk past their table at all. Of course it gave Schneider the perfect opportunity to keep going. “I’m just wondering why Zero came back to _you_ when he could have literally anyone else.”

Jude turned back. “Well, I’m not just anyone, I guess.”

She pretended to look at a lock of her dark-brown hair. “You weren’t so sure about yourself last year. Never thought Zero would be one to pick up the trash of _Velasco_.” She extended the last syllable obnoxiously and her friends snickered.

“So, you’re not just the size of a fifteen-year-old, you’ve got the maturity of one too,” Jude glared, trying to sound unimpressed.

She grinned. “Bigger isn’t always better, you should know that, right?”

Jude shook his head and attempted to head for the door when her annoying, high-pitched voice caught up on him.

“You’re doing them a huge favor,” she said, louder than before; and probably so that everyone in the coffee shop could hear her. “The Team,” she elaborated, her Frappuccino in her hand as she suddenly stepped closer. “By getting back into Zero’s pants, you’re just making it _so easy_ for them to destroy him. _Ciao_ , Captain.”

Jude’s jaws clenched automatically. He wanted to wipe that condescending smile off her face. “I’m an optimist at heart,” he said, and he went for something that he had always promised he wouldn’t do: “No Captain means more free sex for the rest of the Team with easy girls like you.”

The words barely had the time to come out of his mouth before the whole content of Chrissy’s cup was thrown to his face.

*

“Will you stop _laughing_?” Jude hissed in plain frustration.

Raquel shook her head. “Oh come on, it’s kinda funny, right?”

“ _No it’s not_! I don’t want to spend my days getting into cat fights with my boyfriend’s old booty-calls!”

Two days had passed since his memorable encounter with Chrissy Schneider and pretty much all the north end of the Campus had been talking about them fighting over Zero, to Jude’s utter frustration. The funny-not-so-funny part was that the ballers were so knee-deep in practice that Zero was blissfully ignorant of the whole thing. Jude hadn’t had the strength to bring it up when Zero was all cuddly – as if he was trying to make up for the month and a half they were going to be separated.

“Look at the bright side, it’s not like Zero got seriously attached to any of them. It was just wishful thinking on Schneider’s part. Honestly? That’s so sad,” Raquel stated with a sarcastic tone.

Jude didn’t reply anything at first. He sometimes wished Zero had the decency to keep his dick away from his classmates, just to spare him the smug face of that annoying bitch. “Good thing people are all about goddamn Frappuccinos these days,” he eventually groaned, resting his elbows on the shopping cart.

Raquel laughed as they padded through the fruit and vegetable section of the grocery store. “Seriously, that’s kind of lame.” Jude pulled a face and she looked up from the fruits stall, gesturing with her hand. “I mean everyone made the whole story sound a lot more exciting than it actually is, no offense.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had my share of excitement so far. I want the boring part of my life back,” Jude muttered.

Raquel picked up some oranges and they got back into the main aisle, her blue basket swinging in the crook of her elbow. They were grocery-shopping together almost every week and she always insisted on taking a basket, then she ended up stuffing his cart with the heavy stuff she pretended to not be able to carry herself.

“How about we trade, uh? I could even manage not to murder Zero at the first opportunity.”

Jude snorted. “I love my boyfriend but sometimes I think a 2-year-old would be easier to handle. At least if you yell at him, you have a chance that he stops making a fuss about his food.”

Not to mention that kids were also generally unfamiliar with sarcasm — unless that kid was called Esteban Reyes — and thus couldn’t shove a ‘Jude, you could order from a five-star-restaurant and it will still taste like ash to me’ in your face.

“Easy for you to say. Miguel still won’t eat anything except peanut butter sandwiches, and I blame you,” Raquel retorted with a pointed glare.

Jude huffed a laugh. “Why would it be _my_ fault?” They didn’t even have peanut butter, or any kind of peanuts for that matter, because Zero was allergic.

She shrugged and chucked two boxes of toothpaste in her basket and a bottle of make-up remover. “I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve got a father to blame, so I blame you instead.”

He chuckled, but he knew right away that it wasn’t something to tell his boyfriend. Zero thought that Raquel generally took advantage of their friendship for all kinds of Miguel-related things.  It always resulted in a fight whenever he brought it up because Jude thought that he was doing all those Miguel-related things according to his own free will. Zero was still not over the fact that one time last year, when they were grocery-shopping with Raquel and Miguel, a woman had not resisted to tell Raquel and Jude ‘what a beautiful little family they made’. He probably couldn’t blame the lady, because at this moment Miguel was in his arms and Raquel was trying baby-sunglasses on him.

Jude wrinkled his nose at the memory, and maneuvered the cart through the next section, grabbing some milk on the way.

“I hate being a mom,” Raquel huffed when a mother of twins gave them a tired smile.

“You’re a great mom,” Jude nudged her slightly.

“I don’t hate _having a kid_ , I just hate _being a mom_.” Her lips curled into an annoyed pout. “It’s like people think you stop existing all of a sudden. You aren’t just yourself anymore. You’re… You’re like _Barbie_.”

Jude cocked an eyebrow, but that didn’t stop Raquel from continuing, gesturing with her hand as she spoke.

“You’re a package. You’re not just that blonde chick anymore; you’re the blonde chick with the mini-van and the bunch of pets.” The frustration in her voice kept rising as her speech rate quickened. “And people don’t want a blonde chick with so many _pets_ , because at some point they know they will have to take care of them too, and after a while it turns out they don’t even like _pets_ , and they just politely faked interest in her labradoodle and her goldfish and her seven cats all along, when all they wanted was just to abandon them all on the side of the road to bang Barbie in the-”

“Raquel,” Jude cut her off, and he gave an eloquent look above her shoulder.

Raquel turned around to see the crestfallen expression of a little girl, as her mother dragged her in another aisle after glaring at them.

“See? Usually there’re not even so many moms in here. They are all here because of _me_. It’s like they smell each other or something,” Raquel grumbled. Jude couldn’t hold back his laugh this time.

“Don’t you think you’re becoming paranoid?”

“I’m not! It started when I was pregnant. It was like, there were a thousand pregnant women around me all of a sudden,” she said with a shudder.

“The miracle of life.”

“Yeah, my ass.”

They kept walking around for a moment in silence while Raquel was obviously coming down from her outburst – she kept glaring at the canned food though.

“I take it that something happened with Trevor,” he diplomatically pointed out.

“No shit Sherlock,” she groaned, then sighed after glancing up at Jude. “He said he didn’t feel ready to be a stepdad. Why do I care? I mean, I’m not asking him to babysit my son or even to pick him from daycare! As far as I’m concerned, _I was_ the one on the menu.” She winced. “That sounded awkward, sorry.”

Jude shrugged. “You’ve spent almost fifteen years with Kyle. You know she can say worse things than that.” Raquel snorted but it sounded hollow. “Did you try to explain all of that to him?”

Raquel half-heartedly picked up a box of cereal. “I was too shocked to say anything but ‘It’s okay, I get it.’ Like _seriously_? I just want to slap myself every time I think about it.”

Jude winced in sympathy and they took to the direction of the cash registers. “All in all, think that this guy is working on a daily basis with Kyle Hart. That in itself should suffice as payback,” he said while they were waiting.

“Forget it, she’s all about her new guy,” Raquel groaned.

“New guy?”

“Yeah. I don’t know much more than that, though. He’s a customer I think.”

Jude’s eyebrows shot up. “I’ve never seen Kyle with anybody. Her boyfriends are like unicorns. You hear about them but you never actually _see_ them.”

That managed to make Raquel laugh at last. “If this is the guy I saw once or twice talking to her during her shifts, he’s more of the hipster-type than a unicorn. But you do have a point. Maybe we should grill her sometime. Turn the tables for once.”

Jude let out a laugh just as his phone started ringing in his pocket.

“Hello, Lionel,” he smiled after picking up. He tucked his phone between his shoulder and his ear, emptying the cart at the same time. “What’s up?”

“ _It’s finally happening!_ ” Lionel chanted cheerfully. “ _I’m gonna be a mom!_ ”

*

Jude had welcomed the positive outcome of Lionel’s adoption process like some kind of lifesaver. Knowing that at least one thing was going right at the moment was a sincere relief. His ex-stepmother was literally beaming, which was always a sweet sight. To celebrate the adoption finalization, she had organized a lunch to gather all her favorite people. The couch was currently occupied by Jude’s ex-stepmother, his potential mother-in-law Allie, two of Lionel’s closest friends, and Gracie, sitting on the lap of her now adoptive mother. The little girl had been going through a baby-phase recently, but Lionel was positive now that everything was settled and without all the pressure around her, she would get back enough of her confidence – probably from her brother.

“It’s not like Esteban is lacking any in that department,” Lionel observed dryly.

“Maybe Seth could benefit from his influence too,” her friend Lexie replied, taking a sip from her Champagne glass.

Alexia “Lexie” Conroy was a tiny brunette close to Lionel’s age, with a clear inferiority complex, judging by the size of her heels – which barely permitted her to reach Jude’s bicep. She was known as ‘multi-talented’, which was the polite way to say that she had tried many careers but never settled for one in particular and never clearly finished anything in general. The wealth of her family, and then the comfortable situation of her husband, had permitted her to follow her somewhat schizophrenic professional ambitions, which had lately resulted in the launch of her very own jewelry line a few months ago. Aside from that, she was the petulant mother of a ten-year-old boy named Seth. Jude knew her from afar, because the Conroy family had moved to New York City shortly after Lionel’s marriage to his father.

The last woman on the couch was Antonella Battista-Reynolds, and she was the wife of Levine Reynolds, a shooting-guard for the Boston Celtics. She had met Lionel back in the days where they were both WAGs, although they had only befriended upon the Davenports’ divorce. The Reynolds had moved around a handful of times since then, following Levine from one Team to the next. Antonella was the mother of three – Ella, Cosmo and Zara –, had incredible sea-green eyes clashing on her brown skin, and the longest pair of legs Jude had ever seen.

All the kids were being watched upstairs by a nanny Lionel called every once in a while for these kind of events (i.e., when she needed to impress her friends or her family), and the Conroy’s au-pair. The rest of the family was scattered around. Reggie Hemsworth, Samuel Hipwell and Lionel’s brother-in-law Ryan were in a conversation with Lexie’s husband, Asher, meanwhile Lionel’s brother Andy was talking to his mother Diandra. Kerry, Lionel’s sister, was due in a couple of days and everyone had deemed more reasonable that she stayed home.

And Jude? Jude was waiting.

For his boyfriend, more precisely.

Zero wasn’t a schedule-freak, but he was rarely this late in general. It was the second to last weekend they could spend some time together, and the last one he was spending at the flat.

“It’s okay if you can’t be there,” Jude had told him, although half-heartedly.

“Nah, it’s gonna be fine. Just don’t expect me to be right on time,” Zero had replied.

That was the understatement of the year, because everyone had arrived around four hours before and Jude had still no news whatsoever from his boyfriend. Lionel had proposed they could wait a little longer at first, but he had told her to just do without Zero. It wasn’t like Zero would be pissed at missing Champagne, given that he didn’t drink any.

Except that he had not just missed Champagne, but lunch as a whole; and as the dishes went on, Jude could hardly keep his eyes away from his phone, waiting for something to happen. He was going through old conversations in the group-chat he had with Kyle and Raquel to kill time when suddenly, a well-known voice echoed in the room, making his head snap up despite his best efforts.

“Sorry, sorry,” Zero apologized as he politely greeted everyone. “I know, I’m terribly late.”

He gave Jude a puppy look from across the table, then, when he was done saluting everyone; he came to sit next to him.

“Being a celebrity is time-consuming,” Lionel smirked.

“Amen,” Zero sighed. “What did I miss?”

“Some good food,” Jude replied.

“And Nella’s latest WAG’s gossips,” Lexie added.

Zero cocked an eyebrow in a silent question to Jude. “Antonella Reynolds,” Jude said, “as in, Levine Reynolds’ wife. The SG from the Boston Celtics.”

Antonella smiled, as if to say, ‘yup that’s me’, and Zero seemed to put the pieces together. “No offense, but you _did_ look familiar,” he grinned, which made Antonella chuckle.

Jude wondered when his boyfriend had suddenly developed an interest in WAGs, or if he was just being polite.

“No offense either, but you’re not exactly an unknown face among rosters,” Antonella commented.

Zero gave a sarcastic smile. “I wish I could have passed on this kind of publicity.”

Jude blushed and looked down, guilty.

“Any publicity always ends up being good publicity,” Lexie casually said.

Allie seemed doubtful. “The question always remains when exactly does it become useful, though.”

“Yeah, my Coach doesn’t really think that way either,” Zero stated, looking up from his phone before setting it on the table.

“Coaching is one thing, and although it’s an important one, it’s not managing,” Andy pointed out.

Samuel gave a nod. “Agreed. Management wise, they can’t pretend that your coming-out never happened.”

“That’s a far cry from accepting it and dealing with it,” Ryan groaned between two sips of his red wine.

“Zero isn’t going to change the whole NCAA world just by himself,” Allie intervened calmly. “How do you expect 20 year old kid to succeed where full grown-ups with management crisis expert teams can’t?”

Jude glanced at Zero, who clearly looked like he’d rather be talking about literally anything else in the world. Luckily, the conversation soon drifted onto lighter subjects, and Zero seemed to relax a little. Dessert was served in the form of an avalanche of colorful cupcakes, and Jude watched his boyfriend turn a strawberry cupcake to shreds as he kept talking with different people around the table, without actually getting a piece of it into his mouth.

“You know I can’t eat too much sugar,” he said innocently when he caught Jude staring with a pointed look.

Jude rolled his eyes. “It’s a cupcake, Zero, not a seven-tiered wedding cake.”

_Why am I even trying_.

“Glad you already thought of wedding cakes,” Zero sneered.

Jude blinked in surprise, more at his tone than the joke itself.

“Eh, I was just joking,” the baller said, squeezing his knee under the table.

Jude hummed in response and started talking with Andy Hemsworth. It took him fifteen minutes to start noticing what was drawing his attention to Zero every now and then. His boyfriend’s phone was constantly receiving notifications, from Kyle apparently, and Zero was tossing them aside regularly.

“Is everything okay?” Jude enquired the third time he did, and Zero looked up at him with questioning eyes. Jude gestured with his chin to his phone. “Kyle looks kinda on the edge.”

Zero followed his glance, and shrugged. “She’s just being herself. Nothing groundbreaking.”

His own phone buzzed next to his plate. No surprise, it was Kyle as well.

**KYLE:** Zero’s with you?

**JUDE:** Yeah, why?

**KYLE:** Tell him to call me back

Jude frowned and showed the text to Zero. “What’s going on?”

Zero groaned. “It’s no big deal, really.” Seeing that Jude was not about to let it go, he consented to elaborate. “She’s on the loop because some girl’s pics have been leaked online and she thinks I might know her. That’s all.”

Jude took a second to process it. “By pics, you mean nudes?”

“Kind of, yeah. But you know Kyle, she just likes a good story,” Zero said, waving dismissively.

Jude incredulously stared at Zero for a moment, bitter taste on his tongue. “You’re kidding me.” Zero looked at him, puzzled. “You’re literally making a fool of me, you know that right?”

Zero started laughing, but it sounded weird, nervous. “Jude, what are you talking about?”

“Are you in the pics?” Jude asked abruptly, and Zero’s laugh ran short.

“What?”

“Are you in the pics?” Jude repeated, harsher.

“Jude…,” Zero started, but Jude cut him off.

“Is that why Kyle is trying so desperately to reach you? Because you’re in those pics with some random girl?”

Jude hadn’t noticed but he had started to talk louder and some questioning glances landed on them around the table. He couldn’t bring himself to care and just glared at Zero.

“Jeez, no! I’m _not_. I told you- Kyle thought I knew the girl-”

“Do you?” Jude interrupted him again.

“Yeah. It’s… It’s a girl I used to hang out with,” Zero admitted.

_Sleep_ _with. Go ahead, why don’t you_. Jude’s jaws clenched automatically and he stared intensely at his boyfriend. “Something tells me you’re not telling the whole story.”

“Jude-”, Zero tried.

He cut him off by standing up, scrapping his chair on the floor. “Fine, I’ll just ask Kyle then.”

“Don’t do that,” Zero said immediately, following him in a jump

“Why?” Jude insisted, and Zero glanced behind his shoulder, as all the grown-ups around the table were pretending really, really hard not to listen. The baller drew him out of the dining room and closed the door behind them, but if anything it pissed Jude off even more. “If you’re not in these pics, _what’s_ _the_ _problem_?”

“Because I’m the one she sent them to!” Zero eventually blurted out.

Jude blinked a couple of times. Of course, the fact that _he_ didn’t want to send nudes to his oh-so-popular boyfriend didn’t mean that other people would be too shy and too respectful not to do so.

“And how many girls send you nudes exactly?” he asked quietly.

And there it was again, that good old feeling of not being enough. He had thought for a time that it was due to his conflictual relationship with his father, and linked to his upbringing in the Kinkade household. Turns out, his father was only part of the problem. Jude hadn’t thought that the everlasting issue of dating a bisexual person would actually be the other side of the same coin.

Zero sighed, annoyed. “These are old, okay? They don’t- they don’t mean anything.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Jude laughed bitterly.

“Well, yeah, maybe?”

“Well, _yeah_ ,” he repeated harshly, “it _doesn’t_! If it doesn’t mean anything to you, why did you keep them?!”

“I forgot they were here, okay? I had quite a few other things to think about!” Zero bit back.

“… I’m asking again,” Jude said slowly. “Why is _Kyle_ involved in this story?”

“Because she knows Nessa too! The pics are all over Twi-”

“Ness- _Nessa_ _Werner_?” Jude’s eyes widened. “The girl who’s dating that rookie you don’t get along with?”

“Yeah, Parker,” Zero said with obvious reluctance.

Jude’s heart started pounding. “Zero-” He tried to think it through but the only logical explanation to all that shit was… “Don’t tell me you leaked the pictures as a payback for Parker.”

Zero’s eyes widened as if Jude had slapped him. “Of course not!” he yelled, offended. “I’d never do that!” Jude breathed a little easier for a second, believing Zero’s indignation as  proof of his good faith, and maybe things would have calmed down a bit, if Zero hadn’t thought to keep going: “Nessa’s a great girl, okay? I really like her, I’d never do that to her!”

_See? You’re not so special after all,_ a mean voice whispered to his ears, a mean voice that had the unctuous tone of Chrissy Schneider. His heart twisted painfully.

“Well, okay, yeah,” Jude said with difficulty. “I get why you probably _conveniently_ forgot to delete them then.”

That seemed to seriously piss Zero off. “Jude, stop that.”

The harshness of his tone felt like a punch to the gut. “Stop that?!” Jude couldn’t stop himself from yelling. “I just have to deal with you keeping your exes’ nudes, like it’s no _big deal_?”

“BECAUSE IT’S NOT,” Zero shouted back.

“YOU FUCKED HALF THE CAMPUS, DON’T YOU DARE SAY IT’S NO BIG DEAL.”

The whole duplex had fallen into an awkward silent, their fight filling the air with electricity, and they stared at each other for a second; it’s only when Jude’s eyes started prickling with stupid tears that he recovered his ability to move.

He strode out of the corridor and went straight for the front door, which slammed behind him.

*

Zero didn’t know what to expect when he got back to their flat, over an hour after Jude had left Lionel’s condo. The atmosphere was beyond awkward when Zero went to pick up his jacket, and no one said a word until he had left, himself. Zero was pissed at literally everyone on Earth and deemed it more reasonable to wait for things to settle down a little before coming back home – for himself and for Jude.

It didn’t mean it was nearly enough though. When he got back, Jude was standing behind the countertop of the kitchen. He was quiet, too quiet, beyond-angry-quiet. He slipped his iPad towards Zero when he dared to step closer, without a glance up.

The baller already knew what it was, but he picked it up nonetheless. He had screwed up, really bad. He didn’t know why he had told Jude that in the first place — or rather, he _did_ know, he had panicked. Jaws clenched, he looked down at the picture on display, one of the ones that had been leaked. Not one of the suggestive ones, but it was the only one with a guy, a selfie cropped to the couple’s shoulders. Strong arms loosely flung around her waist, golden skin flashing on her dark complexion, and, behind her, the glimpse of a six-pack right next to the pale, thin line of an-inch-long scar.

“I’m trying really, really hard not to care,” Jude said slowly. “Maybe I’m trying too hard, because in the end you don’t even seem to mind when what you do hurts my feelings.”

Zero pressed his lips together and put the iPad back on the hardwood counter. He felt equally tired and pissed, like they had had this conversation a million times already. And here he was again, the defendant, the evil one, the asshole.

“Whatever happened before we got back together _happened_. I can’t change any of it. Sorry if this is difficult for you.” That came out perhaps harsher than intended, but he was tired of apologizing. Jude was gone to the fucking other side of the world when all of that happened. For all he knew, they had separated on such bad terms the second time that Zero didn’t even think that Jude would care at _all_.

“I’m not talking about all of that,” Jude replied bitterly, his voice shuddering from contained anger. His eyes snapped up to him. “I’m talking about the fact that it keeps coming back now, and that you act like it’s perfectly okay!”

“What do you want me to do then?” Zero blurted out. “Drop to my fucking knees to ask you to forgive me?”

“You’re such an ass-”

“An ass who’s trying to protect you!” And yelling it was again.

“ _Protect me_? How does that work?” Jude yelled back.

“It worked until you ruined everything!” Zero exclaimed. “If you hadn’t pushed so hard to find out, none of this would be happening!”

“Oh, because I’m trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with my boyfriend I’m pushing too hard? Is that so?”

Zero furiously glared at him. “Yes! When will you finally understand that some things simply shouldn’t be brought up?”

“So in short this is how you conceive a healthy relationship,” Jude said. “Keeping things from your boyfriend and just waiting for things to settle down quietly.”

“Sometimes, yes, it’s better that way!”

“How is it better to keep things from me?!” Jude shouted, and then he waved at the iPad. For a second, Zero thought he was going to crash it to the floor. “How is it better to just lie openly _to my face_? How am I supposed to think _I’m_ not part of the problem if you keep pushing me away?!”

“I’m not pushing you away!”

Jude snorted bitterly. “Yeah, sure. That’s why you won’t talk to me! No matter how hard I’m trying to be supportive, to understand you; it just _doesn’t work_ because you keep flying fucking solo!”

“It wouldn’t be an issue if you trusted me!” Zero exploded. “What happened to that beautiful speech when you said we shouldn’t believe anyone but ourselves, _uh_? Remember that, Jude? What happened to that? What did I do to make you believe that I could fucking hurt you on purpose?!”

“You just did when you said that there was no picture of you!” Jude screamed. “I tried to handle things like you, you know, I tried to keep things to myself, but _this is bullshit_. I’m fucking done!”

Zero felt his insides twisting and he couldn’t suppress the small shudder in his voice, from pain or anger, he couldn’t tell. “Done with me?”

Jude glared at him, with such coldness that he felt like he was being stabbed a hundred times all at once. “Done with double-faced Zero, that’s for sure.”

Zero didn’t say anything. He strode toward the bedroom, door swinging open, grabbed the bag he had packed for his return to the dorm the next morning, and stormed out of the flat without a glance back.

 


	18. Chapter 18

Contrary to popular belief, Kyle Hart was rarely eavesdropping on purpose: she was just generally there at the right (or wrong) time, depending on the circumstances. In Zero’s opinion, she was generally there at the wrong moment; although sometimes, when she decided to act on it, it could be for an honorable purpose… Sometimes.

Luckily, this was one of those times.

“Sorry, Kyle, I don’t feel like… going out,” Zero exhaled, although ‘keep living’ was probably just about to trip out of his mouth instead.

She looked like a kicked puppy, awkwardly squirming in the doorway of his dorm room. “Please, one drink, that’s all I’m asking. My treat, really.”

Zero huffed another sigh. In all fairness, he didn’t have much else to do. Ted was barely there at all, which left Zero to wonder if he hadn’t managed to score that girl he liked, after all. The engineer-to-be’s welcome had been freezing, to say the least.

“I can’t believe you managed to get kicked out after two months,” was all his roommate had to say, between the moment he caught sight of Zero sitting on his old bed, and the moment when he packed his MacBook and simply left for the night.

It was nothing, though, compared to the moment he had been trying to talk to Nessa.

“ _I trusted you_ , you piece of shit. Even when everybody told me not to, I stupidly trusted you!” she had yelled at him, tears welling up in her eyes, and everyone in the hallway gave him a look that made him want to creep into a fucking hole and never come out of it ever again.

Didn’t matter that he kept denying it came from him, no one bought it. The official version was the same as the one Jude had in mind upon first hearing about it last Sunday – that he had been trying to get back at Parker, whom he was notoriously in conflict with, and he had leaked the shaming nudes of his girlfriend. The whole situation made Zero feel terrible on many levels, starting with the fact that even _Jude_ and _Kyle_ thought he had done it. 

Three days had passed since their fight. Three long, agonizing days.

Jude hadn’t called or texted.

Nothing but radio silence.

And that fucking _hurt_.

Zero had done neither as well, though. He just couldn’t. He was afraid what Jude had said was definitive; that they were really over. He hadn’t even looked at his phone for 24 hours straight, scared as he was that perhaps, _perhaps_ Jude had texted him something like ‘There’s still a bunch of your things waiting to be picked up.’ And when he finally found the courage to look at his phone, all he saw was that there was no news from Jude whatsoever.

 “I’ll give you thirty minutes,” Zero capitulated and she nodded vigorously.

Refusing Kyle was a lost cause and Zero had neither the energy to step out of his dorm nor the energy to persuade her into letting him be. They left the residence, Zero following her half-heartedly through the Campus. He was tired and he just couldn’t wait for the day to end so that he could just shut his brain down and set himself on automatic pilot again.

“Look, I’m sorry I asked you if you were behind the pics,” she said again, for the thirtieth time in the last three days.

“Can we please stop talking about it? I’m this close to being literally stabbed to death in the hallway every damn morning; I think it’s already enough.”

“No, Zero, you don’t get it,” Kyle said as they left the residential area for one much more frequented at this hour, where there were a couple of bars, clubs and restaurants. “I _am_ sorry I doubted for a moment, but what I mean is…” She sighed and looked down sheepishly. “I’m sorry I _asked you_ , because if I had not… Well, maybe you and Jude-”

As far as Zero was concerned, he had not told anyone about the disastrous Sunday evening, but judging by the expression on Kyle’s face, he just assumed that she knew. The puzzled look he gave her nonetheless cut her off. “I… I came to your place, the other night. I wanted to catch up with you and stuff and…”

“In short, you heard us,” Zero mumbled, looking away.

She winced. “I think pretty much the whole building heard you.”

Zero said nothing and they remained silent for a moment, walking side by side.

“How bad is it?” Kyle eventually enquired.

He didn’t know if it was a genuine question or if that meant she just wanted to hear his views on the matter. “I’m not completely sure he hasn’t broken up with me already, and I’m not completely sure he doesn’t think I left for good either,” Zero summed up dryly.

“You guys haven’t talked at all?”

“No.”

Kyle stopped in front of a bar where people were laughing and drinking; the whole place radiating joy and spilling it obscenely onto the sidewalk. Zero considered going straight back to the dorm, Kyle be damned, but she reached for his hand and drew him inside as if she had followed his train of thought. Zero hated it. He hated the goddamn waitress, the packed space, even the checkered shirt of the guy sitting by the entrance. Kyle was striding inside, firmly holding his hand, bee-lining between the booths until Zero eventually pulled his hand away, startling her.

“What the hell, Kyle? There was plenty of space by the front,” he glared at her.

“The booths at the back are always better,” she replied automatically, and she seemed to deflate when Zero shot her another look. “Okay, don’t be mad at me. I’m just trying to help.”

Zero frowned, but before he could ask her what the hell she meant by that, his eyes stumbled on a couple sitting off to the side a few feet away, and his heart started pounding at the familiar outline.

“Kyle,” Zero growled, like a warning.

She left his side to face him. “Look, I’m so sorry everything happened, _partly_ because of me. I just couldn’t sit back and do nothing. It’s too sad to see you both like this,” she insisted.

Zero was about to answer but the words never came. Raquel stood up after downing her drink, and suddenly Jude was looking up at him. A mix of stupefaction and panic flashed through his pretty features and Zero felt his insides twisting, the lump growing in his throat.

“Just go talk to him. Neutral territory,” Kyle whispered, nudging him softly.

Raquel hovered next to them. “He’s all yours; quite literally.”

And then she grabbed Kyle’s arm before the two of them headed for the front of the bar. Zero stared at their retreating figures for a second, then his feet started moving and he soon found himself sitting in front of Jude, looking him right in the eyes. _Just man the fuck up for Christ’s sake._

“Hi,” Zero said nervously.

“Hey,” Jude said. They fell silent and Jude pressed his lips together, playing with his beer bottle for a moment, his eyes falling onto the table. He cleared his throat. “So this is what a break-up settlement looks like?”

Zero’s heart jerked in his chest. “You want to break-up?”

“Do you?” Jude asked with the same voice.

Zero rubbed the back of his neck. “Every couple has their ups and downs, Jude. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you anymore. It doesn’t mean I want to lose you.”

Jude snorted. “Love has never been the problem and you know that.” The silence between them was filled with the sounds of clinking glassware and the murmur of conversations from other booths around them.

_Then what’s the problem_? Zero wanted to ask, but deep down he already knew the answer, and it seemed that Jude knew as well.

“The problem is that I’m neurotic and insecure, probably a little _controlling_ even,” Jude said quietly, still looking down, then his hazel eyes eventually met Zero’s gaze, “and you’re independent but self-protective and secretive. We’ve seen better in terms of compatibility.”

Zero sighed and rested his back against the booth. “Jude, come on. We _are_ compatible. We do have different… _communication styles,_ but it doesn’t mean we _can’t_ be together.” He had a small smile. “I mean, we’ve been compatible since third grade, granted it wasn’t _love_ , but I liked you already.”

Jude looked at him for a moment; then he huffed. “I don’t believe you. We barely knew each other.”

Zero now grinned frankly, fond memories flooding back. “It doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware you existed. You were such a sassy kid; no one was ever picking on you because they just couldn’t find the right angle to piss you off.”

Jude stared, unimpressed. “That didn’t stop _you_ from trying, though.”

Zero chuckled. “What can I say, I wanted to know what was your thing.”

He always ended up trying to solve his problems with his tiny fists, but that rarely worked out the way he had planned, mostly because other kids were always so much bigger than him. He was small, and scrawny, and weird. He didn’t have a family and other kids seemed way too eager to remind him of all the times he said that his mom would come back to get him. Jude was the perfect kid, with big eyes of an indescribable color, nice clothes, good grades, and yet he wasn’t like the other kids of his kind. He wasn’t easily scared, never cried, never asked for help, never complained to the teachers, or worse, told his dad – Terrence was always prompt to do so, no matter how hard he was now trying to deny it.

Jude… Jude just handled his business. He handled his business alone, and told other kids to fuck off. Zero couldn’t absolutely deny that the way eight-year-old Jude was dealing with things had shaped who Zero had become later, after Oscar Kinkade had sent his son away.

“I need you to be honest with me,” Jude eventually said after they stopped talking for a moment. “I need to be able to know if there’s something wrong going on with my boyfriend. I don’t want you to go through all that shit alone. You’ve been doing that all your life and I don’t want you to feel the same when I’m with you. It makes me feel useless; and a crappy boyfriend.”

Zero looked at him. “You’re not useless, don’t ever say that. I just don’t want to… to mess you up, I guess.”

Jude blinked. “Mess me up?”

Zero sighed. “Since high school… It’s always been about me, and my family, and my career… Sometimes I feel like there’s so much Zero in your life that it might crush you someday, and that you’ll realize you’re tired of putting up with my shit all the time.”

“I ‘put up’ with all that shit, as you say, because I’m _willing_ to. All that shit is your life, and since you’re part of mine, well, sorry to disappoint but that’s kind of a part of mine too,” Jude pointed out, then he adverted his gaze. “You’ve become such an important part of my life that sometimes… I just have trouble dealing with the fact that other people have, or used to have, _access_ to you.”

Zero felt guilt spreading through his body. If he wasn’t such a fucker – in all senses of the word – maybe things would be easier. “I’m sorry for the pics, I really had forgotten about them,” he mumbled apologetically. “I hadn’t even saved them, for all I know they were lost in the depths of my conversation with Nessa.”

Jude let out a breath. “It’s not _just_ the pics. It’s all those people who’ve got the nerve to tell me that you have a riding kink.” (Zero cocked an eyebrow at that because he was really _not_ into it. It gave him the feeling of being a living sex-toy and he would be lying if he said he didn’t rather like to… _have the control_ over whatever was happening.) “It’s all those Schneiders who keep rubbing it in my face that I’m not that special since you’ve gotten laid by, like, a thousand more people. It’s all of it.”

Zero frowned. “Schneider? Chrissy Schneider? The cheerleader?”

Jude let out a snort. “Glad you remember all your girls,” he said bitterly as he took a sip from his beer.

“Now you make me sound like a pimp,” Zero huffed.

“Same difference.”

Zero gave him a look and Jude glanced somewhere else. “I never slept with her, just so you know. So I don’t know what she had to _rub_ in the first place.”

Jude looked up at him. “But she said-”

Zero shrugged. “I never had _sex_ with her. Wasn’t for a lack of trying on her part though. I just kind of… fell asleep.”

Jude stared at him, taken aback. “Oh. That probably does explain the bitchiness then.”

Zero leaned slightly forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the table. “You never told me she bothered you.”

“Why do I feel like you’re trying to make a point,” Jude mumbled, irritated.

“Indeed, I am,” Zero admitted.

Jude sighed, gesturing with his hands. “Fine, I guess I deserve it. Preaching for honesty and hiding stuff myself is hypocritical. I get it.”

Zero smiled. “I guess we have a different opinion as to what is worth mentioning and what isn’t, depending on whether it’s about ourselves or the person who shares our life.”

“How do we find a solution then? Because your first reaction will always be to pretend nothing happened. And mine will always be to push it until I find out what’s wrong,” Jude said.

Zero gave it a thought. As far as he knew, there wasn’t a miracle solution, or someone who had already made millions and millions based on that. “I can promise I’ll try to share more - If you don’t mind me being all pissy about my homophobic, narrow-minded, scheming assholes of teammates.”

“People talk about that too, yeah,” Jude admitted. “I didn’t want to believe things were so difficult for you, mostly because… I thought you’d have told me.”

Zero gave him a sheepish smile. “I’d rather come home to you and talk about something else. It was easier for my nerves.”

Jude heaved a sigh after a moment. “Maybe we should… Maybe we should wait till after the Tournament is over to… to sort everything out.”

Zero felt his insides twisting painfully. “You want a break?” he asked weakly.

“No, not a break,” Jude said. “It’s just that… You’ll be busy for the coming days, and as I know it we won’t even have five minutes to see each other till you leave. Maybe we could just let the Championship go first. Not trying desperately to go against your crazy schedule and all.”

_You don’t want to see me for three weeks so that you can make up your mind_ , Zero summed up to himself. He wanted to cry, but some part of him, some decently, clear-minded part of him knew that he was just reaping what he had sown. _That’s what you get for behaving like an ass_. Because that’s what was commonly admitted, right? Even when he was trying not to be, he was an ass.

He probably looked wrecked because Jude immediately sought eye-contact. “Hey, Zero,” he said, and Zero eventually looked up into his eyes, “it’s not a break. I’m not going anywhere. You still have me. I just… I just think all the tension and the pressure surrounding the Tournament is playing well and truly against us. And we’re not doing ourselves any favors by trying to pretend we can have it all.”

“I don’t care about the Tournament if that fucks us up,” Zero bitterly countered.

Jude regarded him with a gentle expression. “We both know that’s not true. And it’s fine. I mean… It’s your career. It’s your future. I’m fine with taking a step back for three weeks if it can prevent a shit ton of drama.”

“Why are you so freaking patient now? Why are you not mad at me the way you were the other day? What has changed?” Zero insisted, even though he knew he was digging his own grave. It didn’t make sense. Why was Jude so nice and so great to him _now_?

Jude looked down. “I guess there’s this hopelessly naïve part of me that believes that my co-Prom-King is still there, underneath the UCLA basketball Team Captain’s shining armor.”

_He’s still there, you idiot_ , he wanted to scream, but nothing came out, at least at first.

“Do you mind if I show you something?” he eventually said.

*

“What are we doing here?” Jude asked when Zero switched the car off.

It was past 11 PM and he still had no idea whatsoever why Zero suddenly claimed his car-keys and dragged him to the other side of Campus until they were parked in front of a frat house. Next to him, Jude stared for a moment at the flag lazily flying above the front door; then turned to him. They had driven in silence from the bar to this house, and some part of the baller found that the silence was not all that bad. It permitted him to muster up enough courage for what was about to follow.

“There’s something you don’t know about me. Something that happened last year,” he said after a short silence. His eyes were lost in the distance, far ahead, and his left wrist was still resting on the edge of the steering wheel. He took a short breath before he started talking. “Last year, when we broke up… I was- I was a mess. Really. Everything just… _hurt_.”

What hurt the most was that he had been the one asking for it, like some kind of masochist. The day Jude was set to leave the country; Zero hadn’t even left his bed. He just couldn’t face it. And he was unable to face it for a couple more days after that.

“After a few days, Roman decided to get me back on track. I was way behind on my workout program and I had to work twice as hard to make up for the three months I missed because of my injury”, Zero huffed.

Three months in a shoulder sling, he had no option but to pull it off through the summer to gain as much visibility as he could get. So he left his bed, he sucked it up, and he threw himself in the Game — quite literally. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do, in the end.

“He talked me into going to some frat party. Ahsha was back in town. When I think about it I can’t even understand how he convinced me to be the third wheel. But he did it anyway.” His eyes fell onto the steering wheel, but he still wasn’t looking at Jude. “Someone gave me a cup and I wanted to decline, but it was like… like my body wasn’t even listening to me anymore. I don’t remember much after that. All I know is that I started to drink… A lot. Next thing I remember…” he paused, and the shadows cast by the streetlamps outside of the car played on his face, emphasizing his jawline as he contracted his jaws a bit. “Next thing I remember I was waking up in a hospital bed. Alcohol poisoning, that’s… that’s what they said.”

It was one of the first temperature peaks of the season. He had run more drills than usual the whole afternoon, he was dehydrated, and since he lacked basic knowledge on how to hold his liquor, the cocktail literally killed it, sending him directly from sober to half-dead in a couple of drinks, denying him the outrageous but life-saving vomit phase. Everything that had happened after the first cup had disappeared forever. All he could remember was the blurry moment where he had woken up to an absolutely wrecked-looking Derek. Roman had found him in one of the rooms on the second floor. _I thought you were sleeping_ , Derek told him; and truth be told, never, in twelve years of friendship, had he seen him so wrecked.

Zero eventually looked up to the crestfallen expression on Jude’s face. “He wanted me to tell you, but it wasn’t- it wasn’t _your place_ to deal with me anymore. Not after the way I had ended things.” He paused for a second before pressing on. “I asked Roman to never talk about it because I didn’t want Allie to freak out. And then I was named Team Captain and… These things are based on morality. The NCAA… They don’t joke with shit like that.”

Jude remained silent for a moment after Zero had stopped talking, and he was afraid that he had unloaded too much on him. His first shot at honesty and he had screwed up again. Now he wished he hadn’t said anything. Honesty _sucked_.

His eyes fell. “I just- I thought you needed to know now. I didn’t want you to get back with me because you’d feel sorry for me. I still don’t want that. But I don’t want this,” he gestured to the house, “to come back and destroy us once again when we least expect it, if we have the chance to fix things.”

Jude nodded slowly. “Thank you for sharing. I think I need some time to process over… all of… _that_.”

Zero felt his heart twinging. “Y-Yeah, I… Sure. I get it.”

“Can we just go home?” Jude whispered, and Zero’s eyes snapped up.

Jude looked exhausted all of a sudden. “I know you thought it’s easier for you to sleep at the dorm but… Can you just come home for tonight? After all of that, I think I’ll need you close by when the…. _realization_ hits me.”

Zero nodded, overwhelmed by the desire to do just that.

Come home… And be with Jude.

*

Have you ever had that annoying feeling that you were constantly forgetting something, yet unable to figure out what it is? Jude had experienced this very feeling for a few days now. The answer to that particular question came a little out of the blue, while Jude was swimming.

After a good six-month break from any kind of water that went beyond a shower, following his surgery and his recovery time, he had started swimming again – partly because natation was good for his heart, and partly because he missed being underwater. At first, Zero refused to let Jude swim _at all_ without him being there, which had been kind of a stretch when they started attending college, since his baller boyfriend’s schedule blew up a little. Then Zero finally agreed to let him be, mostly because Jude had no intention of going back to competition.

‘Course that did not exclude _casual_ competition, like the one he was silently having with the guy in the third lane. It was early – eight in the morning – and the pool was relatively empty, save for three or four people from the Campus. Zero had left the flat around 6:30AM, waking him with a gentle kiss; and Jude had been unable to fall back asleep after that. He was glad he had told him to sleep over. It had taken Jude a few years to admit it, but now that he was finally coming to terms with the neurotic part of himself, he (sometimes) knew when he had a fair shot at a breakdown. The reality of what had happened to Zero last summer had hit him — hard — in the middle of the night, when he realized that he could have well and truly _died_ just like that. No more Zero. Someone would have had to call Jude to break the news. Maybe people would have dragged it out a little, because no one wanted to be Death’s Messenger. There would have been a tombstone in his name… And a lifetime dealing with the loss of his first love. Of course, Jude would have survived it. He would have gone through it, bravely, fiercely, probably out of spite.

And then… Well, after all of that imprinted itself in Jude’s mind, shaped as a horribly realistic Lifetime movie-like dream, that’s when the panic attack had followed. It was horribly embarrassing, really, because three days before he had been yelling at this exact same person that he was done with him, and now he was hyperventilating at the mere idea of something that had happened almost a year ago, while he was _six thousand miles awa_ y.

The thought of it pushed Jude to increase his speed, his arms reaching farther and farther, breaching the water on his way.

The most embarrassing part of it all remained that Zero had been patient and caring, hugging and holding him through his panic attack, and the only response that Jude had offered was to… jump Zero. Literally. It would have been mortifying — the fact that his panicked self was thinking with his dick — if it had been with someone else, but Zero was his _boyfriend_ so it wasn’t that bad. It was just utterly embarrassing given the state of their relationship. Particularly when Zero asked, somewhere between two rounds: “I gotta ask, are you worried or are you _turned on_? Because right now you make it really hard to pinpoint.”

Jude was just reaching the end of his lane, a solid ten seconds ahead of the third-lane-guy, and was enjoying a large gulp of air, when his eyes travelled up all the way from an expensive pair of sneakers furiously hammering the tiled floor, to an equally expensive tracksuit draped around a pair of folded arms.

“Will you be _kind enough_ to explain to me why I had to search _the entire town_ to find you?” Lionel fumed.

Jude winced and gave her a sheepish smile, resting his elbows on the edge of the pool. “Lionel, what’s up?”

Lionel’s eyes seemed about to roll out of their orbits. “ _What’s up_?!” she chocked herself. “You told me you were calling me back! _Four days ago_!”

_Oh_.

That’s what he had forgotten then.

Jude felt embarrassed and his cheeks turned a bright red when the other swimmers glared at him from a disturbance. Lionel shot them all a look; then angrily gestured to the door leading to the locker room, before storming out of the place through the lifeguards’ office. He immediately regretted the quietness of the water when he lifted himself out of the pool and headed out to the locker room.

Lionel waltzed in as he was retrieving a towel from his locker. “Lionel, you’re not supposed to be here,” he sighed half-heartedly. “How did you even get inside with your clothes?”

“The real question, my dear, is _why_ did I have to ask your friends if you were still alive?” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

He toweled his dripping hair. “I forgot to call back, okay? I just had a lot to think about.”

“Yes, and last time we talked – or rather, last time you _hung up on me_ – you said that Zero, and I quote, could ‘throw himself under a train for all I care’, and you just expect me not to _worry_?” she deadpanned.

She had called him something like half an hour after Zero had slammed the door of the flat, so it explained why Jude wasn’t particularly in high spirits to entertain a conversation. Jude avoided her glance and kept drying himself off, before eventually draping himself with the towel. “Well, we fought.”

Lionel snorted. “Yeah, at least seventeen people can attest to that, I think we’re a little past that at this point. What’s going on?”

“My boyfriend is literally the hottest guy on Campus and sometimes it’s just not much of a turn-on,” he mumbled. “I just hate being reminded that his sex-life counts as many names as the Screen Actor’s Guild.”

_I can’t stop thinking I’m not enough for him_ , he thought, but he didn’t want Lionel to start thinking it was _all_ about sex. She might not be his actual biological mother, but he didn’t want to talk about his sex-life with her any more than if she was.

Lionel huffed and sat on the bench, patting the spot next to her for Jude to follow. “Jude, honey, you’re not blind, and you’re certainly not stupid. Zero _is_ attractive; you know that, I know that, everybody knows that. And if he makes it in the NBA, it’s not going to stop anytime soon, I’m sorry but you have to face it. Take that from someone who’s been there before.”

Jude let out a small groan. Of course he knew Lionel was talking from experience, but it didn’t make things any easier to swallow; _especially_ since she had _divorced_ her baller husband.

“You’ve got to distance yourself from everyone who is toxic to your relationship, if you really want to envision a future with Zero.”

“I _know_ that. I’m just torn between what I feel and… and the fear of letting things be. I’m just freaking out that if I pretend it doesn’t affect me, someday he’s gonna cheat and I will just end up saying ‘It was a one-time thing’,” Jude confessed.

“Do you think he could cheat on you?”

“I don’t know! What if he _does_? He’s got all those hot people around him!”

“Jude,” she sighed. “Murphy’s Law isn’t a life principle. If you don’t trust Zero, you might as well break it off here and now because it won’t be any good for either of you to keep this situation going. However, if you _do_ trust him, I don’t think a couple of old, slightly-suggestive selfies will have Zero throwing his pants away.”

Jude snorted. “I can’t believe people think Zero is the one who is having trust issues. I’m totally wrecked in that department.”

Lionel gave him a pat on the shoulder. “That’s called ‘history’. Everyone has one. You two just happen to have a stronger past than most, that’s all.”

Jude groaned in response. They fell silent.

“How are finals going?” Lionel asked after a moment.

“Lionel. I’m dripping wet and I’m freezing. Get the hell out of here.”

 


	19. Chapter 19

Zero wanted to _die_.

Right now.

He didn’t care how; he didn’t care if it was from some seizure or godly wrath. He just wished for an earthquake to happen, make the whole campus crumble, and kill him with a fallen piece of the ceiling — or for the ground to open up and swallow him, he wasn’t picky.

_Anything_ , as long as he didn’t have to go through one more minute being lectured by an over-sympathetic middle-aged-man, Mr. ‘please-call-me-Dennis’ Foreman, that homophobia was wrong. Is this a joke? He certainly thought so when Brighi, the Assistant Coach, had held the players back before they headed to the locker room after practice.

“The League and the school want us to, er, show that we’re taking some events that happened lately, within the teams and on Campus, seriously. You’re all booked for a conference at 3 this afternoon... Homophobia and all that jazz.”

A loud concert of groans had welcomed the schedule update. The ‘events’ were just one situation, which had happened two days ago. The Team was supposed to go through a photoshoot session to promote the Tournament, and under Ryder’s influence, most of the guys had showed up with a ‘NO HOMO’ badge pinned to their jersey. Alford had thrown a tantrum that the walls would probably remember for years to come, and that was even before he found out that the players had plastered ‘NO HOMO’ stickers all over the locker room.

The photographer and the people from the NCAA who were assisting the shoot filed a report on the incident, but it all led to nothing but a mild sanction — the conference.

Well, mild for most people… _Guilty_ people.

“Zero?” Brighi had called out, and everybody looked up at him, baring their teeth already. “You’re in too.”

“You’re kidding, right?” he had deadpanned, because really, what else was he supposed to _say_? That the bisexual one already knew quite enough about _homophobia_?

Turned out he wasn’t kidding. “The League requested all the players to attend. Last time I checked, you are one of them,” Brighi had retorted bluntly.

Zero had been too dumbfounded to protest.

Now he sincerely regretted not having been more strong-headed on this one.

Dennis-the-gay-advocate was, slowly and methodically, making Zero’s cheeks turn a brighter and more vibrant shade of red every time he just opened his damn mouth. The players were sitting in one of the conference rooms, surrounded by the rest of the staff, including the medical team, the managers and the coaches — and Alford, until the asshole had taken a phone-call and left.

The conference had started off with the definition of homophobia, and to Zero’s despair, a PowerPoint had appeared on the white screen, with the definition properly written and a ‘HOMOPHOBIA’ big enough for a blind man to see it. He slowly began to crumble in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, trying to melt into the chair while his teammates huffed groans of protest.

“In terms of what we assume are ‘negative attitudes’,” Dennis said, “we need to draw the line between prejudice and active discrimination. People have prejudices and stereotypes about queer people, but they don’t necessarily _act_ on them in a manner that would interfere with, well, their _rights_. That’s a certain type of bullying.”

_Yeah, that’s called moral harassment_ , Zero bitterly thought to himself. He kept staring at the clock on his phone every two seconds, but time was so slow that he could practically make up milliseconds at this point.

“Hiding or feeling shame about your own sexual identity is generally caused by other people’s opinion,” Dennis went on, and Zero almost choked himself when the man glanced at him with what he probably hoped was a reassuring smile. “Low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts, social isolation, self-hatred, risky sexual behavior… They are often a direct consequence of this form of secrecy. Pretending to be heterosexual or gender conforming to avoid being ostracized by teammates is exhausting and time-consuming,” and with that he shot another smile to him.

Zero broke eye-contact with him immediately, but the man’s attempts didn’t go unnoticed, sadly, and people started giggling like preschoolers behind him. For a few more minutes, Zero tried not to even _listen_ , but it was hard given that Dennis-the-gay-advocate was using words such as ‘community’ and ‘mutual respect’ and ‘secured space-work’ — everything that had been denied to him, in short. The speech kept going for another twenty minutes. Dennis addressed the issues regarding the ‘faculties’ treatment regarding queer athletes’ (in short, adults behaving like asses), but barely acknowledged at all the case where people simply turned a blind eye to all the harassment — which was too bad, because there would have been quite a lot of study cases in the conference room, starting with Brighi and Morrison, and Harris, the Head of the Medical Team.

The conference speaker leaned back against the table and scanned the room. “Prejudices and discrimination are generally intensified by a lack of knowledge and understanding. Let’s take an example, often talked about but full of misconceptions, that contributes to spread misinformation: the whole concept of tops and bottoms.”

The muffled snicker turned louder. Zero wanted to throw up, and that’s when he decided that _no_ , that was _not_ happening. He was _not_ going to stand here and listen to Dennis-the-gay-advocate clear the notions of tops and bottoms for his teammates in his very own presence. What was the next step? Asking him if he was bottoming on a regular basis? _How was that supposed to help_?

“What, craving dick already?”, someone scorned behind him, and Zero wished his head had not automatically snapped to the side, because he _knew_ that he was caught off-guard and that his cheeks were already bright red, he knew it long before his teammates burst out laughing.

Zero jolted off his chair, grabbed his bag and strode out of the conference room, slamming the door behind him, just as someone was grumbling “ _Give him a fucking break_.”

He didn’t care for the people staring at him with a cocked eyebrow as he stormed in the hallway; he barely noticed them at all — that and the voice calling him out.

“Zero wait-”

Zero eventually twisted back, only to see Nando standing in the hall. He assumed he had run out of the room on instinct, because he was empty-handed, and his stuff was probably still in the conference room. His teammate looked suddenly self-conscious under Zero’s death stare.

“Not everyone thinks like them,” Nando said after a moment, “not everyone thinks it’s funny to torment people for free.”

Zero snorted bitterly. “Tell me how that’s any different from when no one speaks up.”

Nando averted his eyes and Zero nodded to himself.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he simply snarled, then furiously walked away.

*

As Jude had already expected, they hardly saw each other during the last week Zero spent on Campus. They talked a few times on the phone, sent texts, Zero made visible efforts to share about the awful conference he had been forced to attend, but that was mostly it. The blame was shared both by Zero’s crazy schedule and by Jude’s finals; which were, among other things, preventing him from attending the first two rounds of the Championship. If the Bruins didn’t go past these, he wouldn’t even have the opportunity to watch Zero play at all.

But as Zero was now set to leave the city, Jude had been woken up at 4AM by that realization: he hated himself, so, _so much_. Not always, not in every situation, but he hated himself when it came to his boyfriend, most specifically, the state of their relationship.

What he hated the most was that he was equally convinced that asking for that kind of a “break” during the Tournament was the best solution and yet also the worst idea he ever had. With Zero’s confession and the night that had followed, Jude didn’t even know where they were going anymore. Were they on a break? Did the fact they slept together — which was on him — mean they had made up? Did he _want_ to make up so fast when the main issues in their relationship still had to be addressed? He had meant it when he told Zero that love was not the problem between them. Jude doubted many things, at all times of the day (and night), but his love for Zero was not one of them; definitely not.

And now Jude was standing there like an idiot, at 6AM in the hallway of a dorm that wasn’t even formerly his, since he had apparently forgotten how a door handle worked. Said door handle turned, and Zero almost bumped face-first into his boyfriend.

_“Holy_ — F-Fuck, I-I think my heart skipped a beat,” the baller sputtered, his hand flying to his chest.

“Sorry,” Jude winced.

“You came to see me,” Zero grinned, once past the initial shock.

Jude cleared his throat. “Just so you know, this,” and he gestured vaguely, “seemed a lot less sappy in my head.”

Zero dropped his backpack on the ground and grinned even wider. “Thank God you’re such a sap.”

Jude glared, which earned him a chuckle. Zero’s hair was ruffled and Jude could see his collarbones peeking through the low-buttoned white button-up he had put on half-heartedly. Jude didn’t resist the habit of tugging at the fabric teasingly.

“What is Alford going to say when he sees you all sloppy like that?” Jude snorted.

Zero shrugged. “I’m going to spend four hours in a goddamn travel bus. The fact that I put on this awful thing _at all_ should be considered the best he could hope for.”

Jude huffed a laugh; then he remembered that Zero was literally just about to go when they bumped into each other. “Relax, I’ve still a couple of minutes left before I’m really late,” Zero joked.

“I don’t want you to be late,” Jude mumbled; it was really not the moment for that kind of behavior from his boyfriend. Zero closed the door of the dorm behind him, and it’s only then that Jude remarked that he was alone inside.

“You threw Ted out?”

Zero rolled his eyes. “Honestly I stopped wondering where the hell he was. I saw him like, three times since I got back,” he said as he waved it off. “Do you want to come with me to the parking lot?”

He sounded so hopeful that Jude couldn’t possibly have said no, even if he had a very good reason to refuse — which he didn’t, thankfully. The managers were taking care of everything that wasn’t the athletes’ personal stuff (jerseys, shoes, track suits), so at least the athletes could travel light, which was, besides the fact that everything was already checked by other people beforehand, the only perk of travelling with a Team, according to Zero.

They walked in companionable silence, and when Jude tentatively intertwined their fingers on the way, Zero didn’t seem to be surprised. The giant Bruins’ Bus was parked behind the Arena and, predictably, already buzzing with the managers and various members of the staff. The medical team was reviewing the schedules, while several members of the cheerleading squad were chatting enthusiastically and the ballers messing together. It could have been one sweet sight to see those athletes smile and laugh, a spark of excitement in the air, if it wasn’t the embodiment of his boyfriend’s nemesis. Nando, Molina and Curtis were wrapped around their girlfriends for the time being. Kors had a tiny blonde girl hanging at his arm, and Anwar was painstakingly hitting on a Cheerleader until the Cheer Coach dragged her away, to the baller’s dismay.

Jude felt something twisting in his stomach, and he tugged at Zero’s fingers, slowing down. “I think it’s best if I leave you here.”

Zero turned to him, squeezing his fingers in return. “What are you talking about? It’s 2021, not _1941_.”

Jude gave him a pointed look. “Are you sure about this?”

Zero shook his head. “The girlfriends are here. I don’t see why you couldn’t be,” he decided, and he grabbed Jude’s hand before walking in the bus’s direction without caring for Jude’s whispered protests.

Everyone stared at them for a moment, but Zero didn’t shy away and behaved perfectly normally, as if he didn’t see the problem in bringing his _boyfriend_ right under the nose of notorious homophobic dudes. _That’s it he’s officially insane_ , Jude thought helplessly. No one said anything though, and one after the other, they all turned away to go back to their conversations. Zero handed his suitcase to one of the managers for him to check it and put it in the luggage compartment of the Bus; then he came back to Jude.

“I’m glad you came,” he confessed and Jude smiled. “I’ve made quite a mess lately, uh? So I’m just- I’m glad you came and I’m glad you’re giving me a chance to fix things.”

Jude’s heartbeat picked up, and as he looked at Zero, at everything he loved in him, he just _knew_. He knew where he stood, in his life, in this relationship. The answer felt so easy and so natural that he couldn’t even remember what he had been twisting himself up about a few hours ago. He was standing with Zero, plain and simple. There was no break, there was no doubt. Lionel was right; he couldn’t spend his life waiting to get hurt. And if he got hurt in the end, he’d survive it, because that’s how life worked.

He reached out and grabbed the lapels of Zero’s jacket, drawing him close until there was no space left between them, claiming his lips.

Jude would have all the time in the world to worry about that simple, innocent gesture later, starting with the fact that he had just kissed Zero in a crowded parking lot and right under the eyes of his homophobic dumbass teammates. But Zero’s lips felt so impossibly soft against his that he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

They were interrupted by the arrival of the Assistant Coaches, who didn’t even need to use words to shoo away everyone who wasn’t on the team or a staff member. The other players were crowding near the main entrance of the Bus, girlfriends already walking away, and eventually, Zero pressed one more kiss onto Jude’s lips.

“Kick some ass,” Jude said as they parted. Zero grinned at him when he started walking backwards, before turning on his heels and retreating by the same road he had just taken with Zero.

He could hear the conversations coming from the parking lot, but they grew quieter and quieter as he walked farther away, and he tried to think of something else that wasn’t his boyfriend to cheer himself up. Sadly, the other part of his life was just literally overwhelmed by his finals, and it wasn’t any more of a rejoicing prospect to come back to. He was lost in his thoughts, ironically following the other girlfriends from afar, when he heard a sniffle to his right, and he couldn’t help but turn to look. One of the girls — Kors’ — had stopped walking and was now tugging at her sleeve to wipe some tears from her eyes. Jude was so taken aback that his pace faltered.

“Is everything okay…?” he asked, somewhat stupidly because it wasn’t like the girlfriends of the Team had given him anything but the cold shoulder.

The girl looked up, as surprised as he was, and her big, red-circled green eyes stared at him for a second, before she started to chuckle. “I-It’s fine, really. I-I cry over Pampers commercials, why w-wouldn’t I do the same for my b-boyfriend leaving, uh?” She sniffled some more and swallowed thickly, with a little awkward laugh.

From afar he had only seen that she was blonde, but her hair was actually stranded with some light-pink and light-purple locks that she nervously tugged behind her ear.

Jude didn’t really know what to do with these pieces of information, nor the fact that he was alone at 6.30AM on a deserted part of Campus with a girl crying. “Oh, um. I see,” he drawled, unsure. What was he supposed to _say?_ He didn’t even know the other girlfriends, it wasn’t like he could say ‘hey, I saw you around a few times’, or literally _anything_ that would make the situation less awkward!

She waved. “Don’t worry, it’s f-fine. It’s just that we haven’t b-been dating for long and it’s the first time we’re s-separated m-more than a weekend a-and…” She took a deep breath and obviously made an effort to stop the tears from coming back again.

Jude felt like he was going to regret it — when had he not regretted helping out someone he barely knew? — but he couldn’t just walk away like that. “Would you-, uh. Would you feel like getting a coffee or something?” he offered, rather out of politeness than genuine interest.

Her face seemed to light up, and Jude didn’t know if it was flushed because she had been crying or because she was blushing. “Honestly I’d die for one. Thanks.” She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Maddie, by the way. Maddie Corcoran. And yes, I cry over absolutely everything.”

Jude couldn’t help a small chuckle. “Jude Kinkade.”

They made it to one of the 24/7 coffee shops located a little further south from the Arena, and by the time they got their orders — something huge with lots of whipped cream for Maddie —, the girl had stopped crying for good. Jude decided that he could probably relax a little, since she hadn’t yet turned into an annoying bitch, which he took as a good sign. He definitely made up his mind when she confessed that the other girlfriends tended to give her the creeps.

“I don’t really know them. I’m not sure I would… _fit_ with them,” she said, tugging at a three-color strand of her hair; then she hastily looked up. “Sorry, maybe they are friends of yours or something? I don’t know many people to be honest. I got transferred here from Boston in January.”

Jude’s eyebrows shot up and he started laughing. “Nah, the girlfriends don’t really hang out with me. Not that I’m looking forward to either.” The only girlfriends who had been nice to him were older and thus had left Campus a while ago. “Why did you transfer? If it’s not too personal, of course.”

She had a big smile that lightened her features. “The drama program I had applied for in September had an empty spot. I was on the waiting list, so they called me.”

“You must have been really excited,” Jude said.

Maddie’s smile widened ever more. “I totally was. I was also pretty freaked out, to be honest. I still am?” She made a small nervous laugh. “But since I met Austin, it’s like, things are finally starting to fall in the right places. What about you?”

“Oh, um, I’m majoring in economics. Junior year, also,” he added, because he had figured that Maddie was a sophomore. “Potentially on the way to law school. And… yeah, that’s about everything.”

“What is it really like to date a player?” she asked after a moment, thoughtfully. “I mean, all the girls make it sound like it’s the experience of a lifetime but that sounds… weird. It’s like you’re asking a shoe-maker if shoes are really that useful, he’s got no interest saying they aren’t.”

Jude’s thoughts flew to Zero and his heart twisted a little. _It’s awful_ , he thought. _It’s painful and sometimes life-wrecking._ He took a sip of his coffee before answering. “I don’t think I’m the right person for you to ask. You’re talking to the only gay boyfriend, so I’m not sure my _experience_ is the one you should consider the norm.”

Maddie studied him for a moment. “Then what is the norm? A bunch of self-centered girls in tight-fitting ripped jeans, with mouths the size of Texas?” she snorted, before shrugging. “I think I’m gonna pass and stick with the gay guy who asked me if I was okay.”

*

Zero let out a relieved groan when he finally, _finally_ was able to drop himself onto his hotel bed, immediately sinking into the mattress. It felt like his whole body was aching, from head to toe. They had spent nearly four hours on the road, in a packed travel bus; then when they finally reached San Jose, California, where the First Round of the Tournament for the West Regional Conference was supposed to be held, they were unceremoniously _dropped_ at the Arena to tour around, while their stuff was taken to their hotel. Teams were supposed to take the road if the destination was less than four hours away from home. Theirs? _Three goddam hours and forty minutes._ Twenty more minutes and they could have had a peaceful, one-hour-flight, but _no_ , let’s just start with a freaking four-hour bus trip to set the mood, right?

Four hours of that treat and Zero’s back was a literal mess, not to mention a headache on top of things. On the other side of the room, Nando was taking the first opportunity to get rid of his button-up, grumbling under his breath. Zero didn’t really know if he should consider himself lucky for sharing a room with someone who, at worst, didn’t seem to want to strangle him in his sleep, or if he should still be pissed at the universe because that someone looked like he was in a talking mood after basically two months of nothing, and that _pissed Zero off_.

“Don’t expect me to make small talk,” Zero eventually cut Nando off as he was kicking his shoes at the end of his bed, rambling about the Arena they were supposed to play in next Thursday.

Nando looked at him then huffed a groan. “Dude, I know I messed up but-”

Zero snickered bitterly and his resentment gave him enough strength to get up from his bed. “ _No,_ you’ve got to actually _do_ something in the first place to screw up. You just stared and stood at the back,” he growled, and before Nando could say anything, he grabbed his backpack and slammed the door of the room shut behind him.

They were supposed to meet downstairs at 6:30PM for their study session with their academic counselor, in a little over fifteen minute, but he didn’t want to start working himself up with Nando as soon as they got here. He walked in the empty conference room, held at their disposition, and flicked through his phone for a while. Judging by the way his number of notifications had stabilized across the last few weeks, all platforms put altogether; he had both managed to keep his word to Alford and royally screwed up. On one hand, he had managed not to stir up more attention with another scandal since the whole internet started bragging about his relationship with a boy. On the other hand, his social media accounts had stabilized, yes, but still with thousands of notifications a day. Zero wasn’t sure Alford would consider it a victory.

With an annoyed huff, he tossed his phone onto the table and fetched a pen and a plastic folder containing some of his assignments, begrudgingly starting to go through it. He must have eventually found a way to focus because soon, Logan Dempsey, their head academic counselor, walked in, staring at him with a cocked eyebrow. Zero had always kind of liked Logan; she was probably in her late thirties, with short, straight blond hair and always sporting the trendiest sneakers you could find on the market. She had this remarkable ability to soothe the guys into believing they were capable of achieving things but without buttering up to them either.

“You’re rarely ever the first to get here usually,” she observed lightly, putting her travel coffee mug on the table and her saddlebag on a chair.

He shrugged, but she had known him for three years now and he wasn’t exactly reputed for being the most dedicated and hardworking in terms of actual academic work —  surprisingly, Anwar was the top dog in that department. Though it wasn’t like he was actually counting on his marketing degree to settle in life.

The other guys walked in, two or three at a time, and soon the conference room was full but unexpectedly silent. The study session ended an hour later, and after dinner everybody was back to their floor by 8PM. Zero called Jude, then Allie, snapped a little something for Kyle, and by the time Nando made it back to their room over thirty minutes later, he was pretending to be focused on a game replaying, headphones on, to discourage him from talking. He was very determined not to work himself up more than necessary when suddenly, his good will snapped, leading him to snatch the headphones off his ears.

Nando startled on his bed, where he had been flicking through his phone.

“What’s the matter with you?” he blurted out. “Why did you suddenly decide that talking to me was worth it? To get to play in the Tournament?”

Like Alford was actually listening to him these days.

Nando stared at him, blinking a couple of times; then twisted his mouth. “’Course not. I just realized that picking on the gay guy (or bi or whatever) wasn’t something I wanted to spend my last year in college doing,” he mumbled.

“You _realized-_ Oh my fucking God,” Zero choked himself before bursting out in a bitter laugh that seemed to make Nando even less comfortable. “I’m sorry if me coming out like, _three years ago_ is now ruining your plans for your last months of freedom.”

“Dude, it’s never been about you coming out in the first place,” Nando rolled his eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, maybe two people in this team actually give a shit about you getting both! That’s just a sick excuse they found to get under your skin. People hate you because you’re behaving like an asshole who’s too good to ever need anybody!”

“Why would I need someone like Curtis to hand me the ball? This isn’t some pee wee league, okay? We’re talking about the NBA, this is serious,” Zero exclaimed, “Sink or fucking swim, there’s no middle ground!”

Nando dropped his phone on the mattress with a soft thud and fully turned to him. “You know why Curtis manages to play so often when he’s sometimes lacking basic skills? _Because he’s got Ryder_ ,” Nando hammered, counting on his fingers. “Because he’s got Ryder and O’Reilly and Anwar, because he’s shining as an assist, because he compensates for the gaps in his play by teaming up with other people! You take Ryder or Anwar away and Curtis _crumbles_ , that’s how it works!”

Zero snickered. “That’s cute, really, because last I heard the NBA wasn’t drafting _packages_.”

Nando shook his head. “See, that’s where you’ve got it wrong, dude. They might not be drafting packages but they are drafting people who can _adapt_. We’ve seen your games in high school, you know? We’ve watched your entire last season when you got here, all the replays, all the freaking tapes, and we thought ‘what a fucking kid’, and you wanna know what’s the difference between you in high school and you in college? _You’ve lost your buddies_. Roman and Wall aren’t there anymore and you never replaced them, and your game went from three players to one. You’re flying solo, Zero, you’re flying solo and that’s why it can’t work for you!”

“And that’s a fucking reason to make my life a living hell?!” Zero spat. “That’s a fucking reason to humiliate me every single day for two months, to risk games, and a Championship, and everyone’s prospects in _the near future_?”

“No, it’s _not_ , that’s why I’m trying to make up with you, dickhead!” Nando exclaimed; then grumbled after a short silence: “But I don’t even know why I’m doing this because you really don’t look like someone who cares about having people around, so...”

Zero looked away, the harshness on his features contrasting with his words. “Wall and Roman are special people to me. For most of my life I had no one but them, and then my boyfriend. That’s not a connection I can make up with everyone. There’s a level of intimacy I developed with them that I can’t just recreate. That’s just how it is, that’s just how I am. Not everyone grew up in Cabo like Ryder or with a bunch of sisters like Anwar.” He crossed his arms over his chest, throwing his legs on the mattress and resting his back on the headboard of his bed.

“Yeah, well, neither Roman nor Wall are here, you know? Wall can’t have your back, you’re not in the same Team anymore, and he had no trouble replacing you. That’s why he’s the Eastern Devil,” Nando got up and started rummaging in his suitcase. “I don’t know what’s going on with that Zero name of yours, and frankly if you had wanted to spill the beans about it, you would have done so three years ago, but right now, you’re just a Tournament away from going to ‘NCAA’s Western Sweetheart’ to ‘Dead, Buried and Forgotten’. And that’s not because of the gay thing,” he concluded before heading to the bathroom.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for those who keep up with that story, it really means a lot! (:  
> feedbacks are always appreciated <3

“ _Darling_ , I  _love_  the hair,” Kyle decided as soon as she got sight of Maddie standing in the doorframe of Jude and Zero’s flat — well, rather just Jude’s these days.

Jude snorted from the kitchen. “Kyle, let her in before freaking her out.”

“Just look at this color!” she squealed nonetheless, which made Maddie chuckle as she ventured inside.

Jude was busy preparing snacks with Raquel in the open-kitchen, while Derek was setting the large flat-screen ready for the Game — which meant splitting the television between two different channels to get all the angles. Derek had ridiculous opinions (and expectations) on literally every sport announcer, and he sometimes switched the channels when one was getting on his nerves, regardless of what was happening on court. Jude had come to learn that giving him the choice of the channel(s) was the better option.

UCLA was fighting the Second Round on Saturday evening against Wichita State University, two days after pulling a tight win against Alabama-Birmingham, 78 to 76. It was one thing that Jude couldn’t follow Zero around during March Madness because he had his finals, but was it absolutely necessary for the universe to make the First Round happen at 3 in the  _afternoon_ , right in the middle of Jude’s exam? That was beyond unfair, and Jude had spent at least a good fifteen minutes staring down at his blank page, with absolutely nothing in mind but his boyfriend. It also considerably reduced his will power regarding his revision plan when he found out, right after exiting his classroom, that Curtis and Zero had almost fought on the sidelines before halftime, to the point where the Assistant Coaches had to intervene.

By the time he was finally able to get in touch with Zero, the topic was already trending on Twitter and his boyfriend told him right away he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Maddie, this is Kyle, Raquel, and Derek,” he gestured from behind the counter, pointing to his friends.

He hadn’t talked much with Maddie since their first encounter, given that their schedules didn’t coincide, but he figured it would be a polite thing to do to invite her to watch the game. She had seemed genuinely happy, and she confessed that she had declined the invitation of the other girlfriends, mostly because Curtis’ girlfriend, Shailyn, had given her the impression that she only invited her because etiquette forced her to.

Raquel and Kyle had been a little suspicious when he had told them about the girl.

“Look, Jude, I’m not saying you’re not incredibly cool to hang out with,” Raquel had started diplomatically, “but I thought we  _avoided_  talking to the girlfriends. Like we avoid crossing the street in front of a car, you know?”

Jude had snorted at her. “Come on, she’s nice. Like, real nice. She’s new in town, she hadn’t gotten the time to get corrupted just yet.”

Raquel had raised an eyebrow, skeptical. “And that’s supposed to make me like her more?”

He shrugged. “She’s coming over tonight. You’re going to be able to make up your own mind.”

Apparently, Kyle had already made hers. Derek waved at Maddie from the couch. “Don’t take Kyle’s behavior personally, she’s always rude.”

Kyle glared at him. “I’m not  _rude_ , I’m spontaneous,” then she turned to Maddie. “I really do love your hair. My mom is a hairstylist, I basically grew up in a beauty salon.”

“So did Zero but he doesn’t like to be reminded of it,” Raquel snickered, and Jude elbowed her.

Maddie frowned confused. “Is there anything going on between you two? Like, twins or something?”

Derek snickered. “If twins can have different families, share no DNA, and be born eleven months apart, sure, they are.”

“Zero and Kyle have some weird chemistry,” Jude explained with a smirk, before waving randomly. “They’re childhood friends. We all basically are. These two just happen to be the male and female version of the same entity.”

Maddie snorted and dropped herself on the couch, glancing around. “Your flat is really cool.”

“Thanks, my stepmom did all the hard work,” Jude grinned as he brought over a couple Doritos bags and dropped them on the coffee table, before going back to the kitchen.

Kyle immediately proceeded to ask Maddie where the hair came from and how expensive it was to maintain the color, while Derek and Jude were talking about Terrence’s Team and their prospects in this year’s Championship. They brought the rest of the snacks and the drinks into the living room and they all crowded around the coffee table, talking and eating, regularly checking that the game hasn’t started yet. By the time it did, Jude distinctly felt the familiar feeling of his heartbeat picking up. Usually, Jude was managing to feign enough interest in what was happening on Court to pretend he wasn’t just staring at his boyfriend the whole time, but he quickly realized that he was failing miserably. He forced himself to listen to Derek’s ramblings about missed opportunities and shots, contradicting the announcers easily 75% of the time, and generally speaking, translating for the non-basketball speakers in the room. Since Kors wasn’t on Court, Maddie was free to enjoy one of the first games she was paying attention to.

“My family is more of a Broadway family,” she joked. “Although my dad sometimes watches a Hockey game or two when my uncle happens to be around, but that’s mostly it.”

On screen, Alford switched Molina for Anwar and Derek sighed, dropping his head on the edge of the couch. “Remind me why UCLA is paying off scholarships to rookies?”

Jude groaned. “Tell me about it.”

“What are you two on about again?” Kyle asked, reaching for a bottle of soda on the coffee table to fill her cup.

“Our guys are one of the oldest teams in the Tournament,” Jude said. “Nando, Molina, Curtis, Ryder, DiAnthony, Mullins, they are all seniors. Zero, Anwar and Kors are juniors. The rest are freshmen, except for O’Reilly, Parker and… Everton? Yeah, Everton, who are sophomores.”

Maddie looked at him quizzically. “And that means…?”

“That means that Alford keeps the rookies in the stalls for God knows why, and he’s been playing with the same players for like a  _decade_. In terms of a surprise element, we’re basically stripped down to our briefs,” Derek summed up dryly.

Raquel snorted. “I thought the surprise element was kind of dead since the day they involved all these cameras during games.”

“It’s not,” Derek and Jude said with the same voice.

“Alford did the same with Zero though,” Derek said while they were replaying a shot in slow-motion on the left side of the screen. “He waited till Aaron Cohen left to get him on Court, even when everyone agreed that Cohen and Zero would have made a good team.”

Jude sighed. “I know for fact they did. It’s a shame Alford only kept them on during practice.” Jude had learned quite a bit about the underground policies since they had started attending college. Keeping Zero in the stalls, at least for his freshman year, had been Alford’s insurance that no matter how good he was, with no visibility whatsoever he didn’t risk for that new kid to draft at the end of his first year, like so many were tempted to do these days.

Jude looked up at Maddie. “I guess attending practice is one of the perks of being in the girlfriend/boyfriend corner.”

“I thought you were not really giving into that stuff,” Maddie pointed out.

“I used to, from time to time,” he shrugged.

Chelsea Mosley, Aaron Cohen’s girlfriend, aka, the Mommy of the group, had convinced him to do so back in his freshman year. Jude’s head snapped to attention when an uproar exploded on the screen, and a collective groan echoed in the flat. The focus on the right screen went to Zero and Kambé, one of the Wichita guys, who was helping him sit up. Anwar broke in and lifted his Captain up on his feet, and Zero immediately went to the sidelines, head ducked between his shoulders. The left part of the screen was already showing the slow-motion of the commotion, Zero was jumping to score when Kambé had crashed against him and sent him rolling to the ground, inadvertently elbowing him right in the face. The two channels kept reviewing all the angles and the announcers, asking themselves what would be the outcome of the foul, if there was a foul in the first place.

“Ouch,” Raquel and Maddie commented, scrunching their nose when Zero got back on Court, his cheekbone already turning a dark shade of purple.

Jude winced, but there was hardly anything that seemed to bother Zero from the outside, he assumed his boyfriend was probably running on adrenaline. The two teams kept chasing each other from one end of court to the other until halftime. Zero’s face remained closed and unreadable, which contrasted with Ryder’s fuming demeanor.

After halftime, Zero became the center of attention to the announcers for a little while, as both channels went through a short history of his stats and his prospects in the 2021 Tournament. The second half saw the Bruins pulling shot after shot.  By the last quarter, they were fifteen points ahead of Wichita State University, and qualified for the Sweet Sixteen with 108 to 96.  Kyle and Jude both exhaled a long, long relieved sigh.

Maddie looked drained. “Honestly, how do you do it? Austin wasn’t even playing and frankly I’m a total mess,” she complained.

They kept talking for a few minutes until Raquel declared that the week of finals had positively killed her. Kyle left soon after, along with Maddie, and Derek stayed some time to help Jude clear the table. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable as they gathered the dirty dishes and the empty bottles of beer and sodas, until Jude’s eyes fell onto Derek and a thought crossed his mind.

“Zero told me... About last summer,” Jude eventually said as he was filling the dishwasher.

Derek stiffened slightly, then cocked an eyebrow. “Look, Jude, I had promised him not to-”

“I’m not mad at you, calm down,” Jude said. “Rather the contrary, in fact. I just wanted to… you know, thank you.”

Derek exhaled a long breath as he leaned against the kitchen countertop. “That’s a weird thing to be thanked for, but I get your point.”

Jude snorted and closed the dishwasher, and for a moment they went back to silent.

“It was awful,” Derek said quietly a minute later. “It was like a fucking nightmare. I was just calling him and shaking him, and he never even moved a goddamn eyelid.” Jude slowly turned to look at Derek but his friend’s eyes were on the floor, before he eventually shook his head, huffing. “I was so pissed at him, like,  _really_  pissed. Not because of what had  _happened_ , but because of the fact that he made me promise to shut up about it. I just- I don’t even know how many times I dialed T’s number or Ahsha’s and then chickened out and talked about the weather instead.”

“I’m sorry,” Jude said, genuinely.

“Don’t be,” Derek snorted. “I was mad at you a bit too… For leaving. I stupidly told myself that if you hadn’t decided to leave out of the blue, I wouldn’t be there, waiting for my best friend’s body to make it. Of course now I know I was just trying to find a good reason not to be mad at myself for bringing him to that stupid party.”

“For what it’s worth, I was mad at you for not telling me he had been dating other people when I came back in town,” Jude admitted with a wince. “Well, back then I thought it was dating.”

Derek grabbed a pot-holder and started sheepishly fiddling with it. “I genuinely thought Zero needed to get over you. I kinda… suggested him to get a rebound girl. Or guy. Or whatever. Though I didn’t expect him to get a  _hundred_  of them,” he muttered.

Jude heaved a small sigh. “I guess anyone would have done the same, uh? It’s not like I didn’t try to get over him too.” Although not in the same proportions, but Zero was like Lionel. He had a certain amount of “extra” that drove him to do stupid things like take advice and apply it ten times out of proportion.

Derek offered him his fist. “We good?”

Jude gave him a lopsided grin. “We good,” and he bumped his fist.

*

Zero and the Team came back to Los Angeles in the early hours of Sunday, only to spend the rest of the day literally overwhelmed by their finals. Jude had little to no opportunity to see him until the following night, but only because Monday had been offered as a day-off for the players.

When Jude woke up on Monday morning to the warm weight of his boyfriend over him, he let out a soft, content sigh, letting his eyes get used to the light flooding in from under the shutters. Zero was home. Not just home in Los Angeles, but home at the flat, in their bed, his breathing quiet and even, his face half-buried into Jude’s chest. Jude couldn’t remember the last time everything felt so peaceful… Then he remembered that Zero’s return had not been all flowers and sunshine.  Zero had been a tiny,  _tiny_ bit cranky. They might have had sex the night before, but there was a moment where Jude had wondered what the hell was happening because it didn’t feel like sex with Zero at all — rougher, more selfish, light on kisses. He had put it on Zero’s busy schedule, but his mood didn’t exactly improve after that. If his boyfriend hadn’t reached out for a twelve-hour hug at some point, Jude would have thought that Zero was pissed at him or something.

Derek dropped by the following afternoon to replay the games they thought mattered — particularly Terrence’s, then Jude spent about an hour skyping with Jelena for her birthday. The rest of the week was uneventful on his part, since next quarter wasn’t beginning until two weeks later. He had made peace with the fact that Zero would be off to Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday, but the fact that he was presently curled against his boyfriend’s side was making his resignation flinch a little.

They were watching Netflix in Zero’s dorm on Tuesday night, when Jude paused ‘Stranger Things’ to fully turn his attention to Zero. “Okay, look. I know you’re not exactly the ‘I love me some surprises’ kind of guy, so I’m just gonna break it to you now because I don’t want you to think I don’t care about it or that I don’t want to go there or that it’s not a big deal or-”

“Jude,” Zero cut him off with a puzzled expression, eyebrows furrowed quizzically, “ _Breathe_. What are you even talking about?”

“I’m coming. To Louisville. With Allie and Samuel.”

Zero’s expression went from questioning and slightly suspicious to dumbfounded. Then the smile Jude loved the most in this world, bright and cheerful, showed up on his features, making Jude’s stupid heart trip a little. Zero already knew that his parents were going (it wasn’t like Allie differed a lot from her sister Candace when it came to keeping secrets). But the fact that Jude was making the trip too, was brand new information.

“You’re coming to see me play?” he grinned.

Jude nodded, and Zero uttered a spontaneous shout of joy that made him chuckle fondly. Before he even had the time to tell him to be careful with the laptop sitting at the foot of the bed, Jude had a very eager boyfriend straddling him and kissing him deeply.

“I assume you’re happy?” Jude smirked, wrapping his arms around Zero’s waist.

“ _Abso_ - _freaking_ - _lutely_ ,” Zero approved, beaming.

The sight made Jude feel warm and happy beyond words, and he ran his fingers just below the hem of Zero’s hoodie to brush at the skin of his lower back. He nuzzled at Zero’s jawline, and planted a kiss on his lips. “I wasn’t sure if keeping it a surprise would be…  _interesting_.  It’d suck if we can’t even see each other,” he pouted.

Though he was well aware that there were more chances for them to be able to meet if the Bruins lost than if they won — and again, the managers were worse than last century’s chaperons.

“I don’t care,” Zero said between kisses, “I just like to know you’re there.”

Jude chuckled. “Aww, who’s the sappy one now…”

Zero effectively shut him up by shoving his tongue in his mouth, and soon leaned forward even more, pressing Jude down on the mattress. He was starting to completely  _melt,_  dizzy with Zero’s smell and high with Zero’s touch, when the door of the dorm room swung open.

“Oh  _please_ ,” Ted’s voice snarled from the entrance. “Can’t you two just go do your business at your place?”

Zero leaned back, still shamelessly straddling Jude, and glared at his roommate. “I stupidly assumed you’d be out doing whatever I don’t want to know about with your girl.”

“Hi Ted,” Jude waved with a sigh, eyes on the ceiling.

“Jude,” Ted greeted him politely, then dropped his bag onto his desk, indicating that he was not planning to go anywhere. “Bold of you to assume that she’s a girl, Mr. I-don’t-fancy-labels.”

Zero gave him a suspicious look and Jude snorted from below, his hands resting on Zero’s lap. “So you’re screwing a  _guy_?”

Ted cocked an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Does that come from the guy who’s literally a dick away from fucking his boyfriend right in front of my eyes?”

“That definitely comes from the guy who took nearly two months to figure out I was gay,” Jude teased unhelpfully, and Ted gestured at him while looking at Zero with a ‘See?’ expression.

Zero scoffed and looked down at Jude. “ _You were not out_!”

“Point is, your gaydar sucks,” Ted deadpanned.

“I can’t believe you’re taking his side over mine,” Zero grumbled, mildly offended, and he climbed off Jude to pick up his shoes and his jacket and beeline out the door while Jude was laughing and calling him out.

Shaking his head fondly, Jude stood up after the door slammed shut, gathering his stuff. Apparently, it meant they were going home.

“Say hi to your boyfriend for us,” Jude said innocently before exiting the room.

Ted swirled around on his desk chair. “It’s a girl.”

“Then why would you do that?” Jude laughed.

He shrugged and stretched out his long legs. “I like picking on him. It’s not like we’ve got a lot to discuss aside from that.” Ted cleared his throat. “Plus, it kinda helps me to not freak out at the thought of sharing a room with a superstar, I guess.”

Jude smirked. “So you’re really straight?”

“As an arrow,” Ted said matter-of-factly. “But if it’s your way of asking if Zero being into boys as well bugs me, then the answer is no. It’s also kinda late, for that matter. Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, standing up, “I’ve got a date tonight.”

Jude frowned, gesturing at the room around them. “So what was that about then?”

Ted looked at him like he was dumb. “Don’t tell me you’d rather spend the night here, instead of your place, which I’m pretty sure is super fancy with one of those king-size beds.”

“You’re evil. But the nice kind,” Jude snorted, shaking his head, before closing the door and mentally take note to  _never_  seriously piss off Ted Benson.

*

Zero’s hands fell to his hips as he glanced around. Hundreds of people were gathered in the stands. Journalists and reporters were sitting, for their part, by the sidelines, some already reporting live to their respective channels. But most of them were watching the players practice with a genuine interest. It was Wednesday, their last training session before their flight for Louisville later in the evening, and also before the actual Sweet Sixteen. Thursday was supposed to be dedicated to relaxation time and treating the players prone to injuries.

Brighi, one of the Assistant-Coaches, was in charge of training them for competitive shooting drills. Nando and O’Reilly were the only ones to score more than twice, Crawford scored twice, and the others, once or not at all. Curtis missed most of his shots ( _Groundbreaking_ , Zero thought inwardly). Zero honored his ‘best shooting skills’ reputation, and scored all of his shots except two. The crowd was cheering in the stands, which annoyed Brighi, the main condition to open practice was that people remained discreet, not to distract the players.

“Crawford,” Brighi snapped at one point, startling the rookie who was looking behind his shoulder. “I’m right here.”

“Sorry,” he muttered sheepishly.

Brighi groaned and gave them a five-minute break. Most players headed back to the locker room. Neither of which usually happened— they rarely had breaks at all during practice, and when they had a spare minute on Court, they were just sitting on the floor, catching a breath. Zero welcomed it with more relief that he should have. Thing was, he hadn’t been sleeping a lot lately.

Why, you would ask?

Because of those fucking, goddamn  _nightmares_.

Objectively, he didn’t know when that had started exactly. It just kinda started, out of the blue, and by the time he began paying attention to them, a couple of nights had already passed. It wasn’t even those spectacular ‘night terrors’ that made people scream their lungs off in the middle of the night, but more like  _bad dreams_. Shitty thoughts turning into fully-developed scenarios, from which he just woke up more tired than relaxed. It left him damp, cold, with a bitter taste on his tongue and a knot between his shoulder blades for the rest of the day. As any twenty-year-old, it sucked, but as a college athlete in Tournament, it sucked even more.

Between two sips of water, Zero checked his phone without really paying much attention to the outside world. That was, until a familiar face stormed in the room, swinging the doors open and startling everyone. As if on instinct, Nessa didn’t even stop for a second, before she strode to where her boyfriend was standing, she slapped his face so hard that it seemed to echo past the noise of the crowd courtside.

“You’re a fucking psycho!” she screamed from the top of her lungs, voice trembling with contained anger, and everyone stared at them in disbelief.

“What-,” Parker tried, a red mark already forming on his cheek.

“DON’T YOU DARE ACT ALL INNOCENT!” she shouted again. “HOW COULD YOU DO THAT!” she yelled again, punching him in the chest. “You lied to me- You’re such a fucking psycho!”

“You’re the fucking psycho!” Parker blurted back, “you’re the one who’s dating me because I fucking look like that asshole!” and he angrily gestured to the other side of the room. It’s only when all eyes turned on him that Zero realized the ‘asshole’ was actually him.

“And I was fucking wrong to think you could be enough of a replacement!” Nessa shouted back, and when she launched herself at Parker, O’Reilly and Anwar decided to intervene as diplomatically as possible, trying to hold her back.

“I’ll fucking make you regret that,” she spat, pointing at Parker, before taking a step back and kicking her way out of the ballers’ arms.

Within five seconds, she was out as she had come, and there was a stunned silence in the locker room.

“You leaked the pics,” Zero said bluntly, shaking his head, and before Parker could reply, he strode out of the room, just as Molina was mumbling “That’s sick, man”. 

By the time he caught sight of Nessa among the few people from the staff minding their business in the hallway, she was just turning the corner and he was forced to dart behind her.

“Ness, wait,” Zero called out.

She turned back, tears of anger welling up in her dark eyes. “I-I can’t talk to you right n-now,” she said painfully, her voice on the verge of breaking. “It’s all so fucking humiliating I just- I just can’t,” she stammered, then started to walk away.

Zero stayed behind, looking at her, then heaved a sigh and went back to the locker room. What a fucking mess. So Nessa wasn’t over him, and Parker had apparently tried his best to change that, by every possible way, including leaking the nudes of his  _own girlfriend_. At least the truth was out, Zero thought to himself. He should feel relieved, but instead he just felt terrible for Nessa. Being betrayed by your boyfriend was even more awful than being betrayed by your former booty-call.

When he opened the doors to the locker room, some of the players had left for the showers but a fuming Parker was still blurting his lame explanations to his buddies.  _Son of a fucking bitch_ , Zero thought bitterly, and before he even knew it, he was walking right towards him.

“You’re such a fucking prick,” he growled. “You can hate me for all I care, but you didn’t have to bring Nessa into this fucking mess!”

“I didn’t force her to take those pics,” Parker snarled, “and as far as I’m concerned it’s not like she’s  _shy_.”

“You fucking  _cunt_ -,” Zero seethed, and he jumped forward, Ryder and O’Reilly blocking him just as two voices shouted “ _EVERYBODY SHUT UP.”_

All the players froze and snapped their head around to see the Assistant Coaches glaring at them. O’Reilly hauled Zero away from Parker while Ryder was doing the same with the rookie.

“We can hear you from the Court!” Brighi growled.

“The two of you,” Morrison went on, obviously trying to keep the level of his voice down as he pointed at Parker then Zero, “in my office.  _Now_.”

He turned on his heels and Ryder pushed Parker forward to get him to move. Zero followed from a few feet away, Brighi escorting him in Morrison’s office, before shutting the door as calmly as possible behind them.

“You’ve got some serious nerve for a rookie who hadn’t even gotten to play yet,” the Assistant-Coach barked at Parker.

“He jumped on me!” the rookie exclaimed.

“He published nudes of my friend!” Zero shouted back, voluntarily leaving aside all kinds of connections between Nessa and the asshole.

“ _Enough,_ ” Morrison interrupted, whisper-screaming. “UCLA hadn’t made it into the Tournament more than three times in six years, two rounds in and  _you two can’t even behave_?!” He glared at Parker. “Scholarships are up for renewal in two months. If you’re hoping to make it next year, you better start to fucking respect your elders and keep a low profile. Now, out of my sight.”

Parker seemed about to say something, but he simply side-eyed Zero before he and Brighi exited the room.

Morrison glowered at Zero once it was just them. “I hope you’re satisfied.”

“He’s the one who started this mess!” Zero protested.

“It doesn’t change the fact that you’re always involved,” Morrison snapped. “You’re supposed to calm things down, you’re supposed to keep them on track, not getting involved  _every goddam time,_ with the press just next door”

“I’m getting involved because they keep destroying my reputation!” Zero blurted. “They are doing shit and when I step in  _I’m_  the one to blame?”

“That’s because you can’t see the difference between stepping in and  _getting involved_  for the life of you!” Morrison exploded. “You’re acting like a spoiled brat, like everything just belongs to you, starting with that armband you don’t even deserve!”

“I  _deserve_ it!” Zero growled, offended. “I work harder than anyone on this Team and I put up with more shit than you can even think of!”

“Who  _cares_?!” Morrison fired back. “Who cares about that? You’re here to play  _ball!_  Everything else doesn’t concern me, it doesn’t concern Alford. It doesn’t concern any of the people who will be watching the Tournament!  _You get that_? You don’t get to exist outside of the jersey you’re wearing! You are no one until people like me  _decide_  you are worth something!”

Zero’s heart was pounding in his ears, so much it was almost painful.  _You’re what I’m tellin’ ya to be, rugrat_ , a voice slurred somewhere in his brain, and he could practically smell cigarettes and cheap alcohol all over again.  _You’re just a zero, a good for nothin’ brat._ He nervously rubbed his left arm, trying to hold back a wince at the sudden itch under his skin.

“One more step out of the line,  _one more_ , and I’ll make sure you’re out of this Team for good,” Morrison warned harshly before unceremoniously shoving Zero out of the room.

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

Zero stared at his phone for a moment, thoughtful, then quickly sat up in his hotel bed and dialed Terrence’s number. Courtesy of the Tournament and the Southern Regionals, they were finding themselves in the same town for the first time since his friend’s birthday, and probably the last time for months. Most teams were on the same page and tended to avoid heavy-practice on game day; so it wasn’t that foolish to think that maybe they could see each other, even for five minutes. But apparently it was a lot to ask because Zero had called Terrence twice already since he landed in Louisville, and so far he had only gotten an ‘I call you back’… five hours ago. He hated to feel like the clingy girlfriend but he couldn’t back away now. After all, Zero was nothing if not persistent.

One ring, two rings. Zero was mentally planning what snarky message he would leave on Terrence’s voicemail when a deep, slightly familiar voice picked up.

“Hello, Zero,” Selden Wall politely greeted him. “It’s been a while.”

“Oh, uh… Hi, Mr. Wall,” Zero piped up, trying to sound casual.

As someone who had lacked a paternal figure his entire life, Zero was often left wondering what the hell was the matter with the universe, because Raquel’s father was the only one in the gang who was reasonably human. Selden Wall had always been an impressive, imposing figure to look up to for Zero; and if he was absolutely honest, the man had more or less freaked him out from the beginning — though he freaked Derek out as well.

“I was hoping I could maybe catch up with Terrence; any chance that he’s around?” Zero asked diplomatically, although _why the fuck are you answering his phone_ wasn’t far behind.

“Terrence is in the press room. You know how it works,” Mr. Wall replied. It often happened that the managers claimed the cells before anybody entered the press room, but the fact that Selden Wall was allowed to be there at all went beyond his understanding.

Zero hummed in response. “Yeah, I got a press conf. scheduled in two hours or so. Speaking of, do you have any idea how long he will be in there?”

“I don’t know exactly. He’s got to work out some things with his teammates after that,” Mr. Wall responded evasively. “Do you want to leave him a message?”

A bitter taste ran on his tongue. “Maybe… Maybe just to call me back,” he mumbled.

“Right. Good luck in the Game,” Mr. Wall said, and just as he was about to hang up, the words slipped out of Zero’s mouth.

“You think I’m trouble, don’t you?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Zero,” Mr. Wall said slowly, and Zero wanted to tell him he was not a fucking _moron_. “It’s a very stressful year for everyone. Terrence is getting drafted this year, I know he told you. The stakes are high even for you, and that media circus… It’s not helping.  I don’t think the right way to get through this is to… _unload_ the pent up pressure on each other. That’s all.”

The calm and steadiness of the man’s voice was probably what hurt the most, because he knew that Selden Wall believed every single word and even more.

 _He thinks I’m trouble_.

Just like twelve years ago, when he was that annoying kid with scratched up knees, who made parents twitch an eyebrow in disapproval whenever they saw him around. Selden Wall thought he was trouble for his precious son, _oh the irony_. Because if he, _Zero_ , had never come along, Terrence would have never made peace with basketball. Hell, when they met, Terrence _hated_ basketball; just like he hated everything that reminded him of his cheating liar of father. And when they had started to play, Terrence, Derek, and himself; and Selden Wall had gotten the shared custody of his sons, Terrence eventually dropped the sword and slowly started bonding with his dad again.

If Daddy Wall had any kind of connection with them, not just Terrence, but his brothers Clarence and Lawrence as well, it was only because _he_ had come along at one point.

“I’ve never intentionally planned on dragging people into my shit, Mr. Wall,” Zero retorted, too offended to be polite. “And since we are apparently giving advice, I don’t think Terrence needs a bodyguard or a manager any more than he needs an actual father. Say hi or not, I don’t care.” And with that he hung up, the familiar and unpleasant feeling of betrayal a pang in his chest.

Terrence didn’t call back.

Zero wished he didn’t care.

*

“Laura Aimee Hipwell, if you aren’t ready in five minutes we set off without you!” Allie Willwight-Hipwell threatened from the bottom of the staircase, mildly annoyed.  

“I’m putting on my shoes!” her daughter cried back from upstairs.  

Allie rolled her eyes and exchanged a knowing look with Jude. They were supposed to depart for the airport as soon as Samuel would be back from dropping the twins at their grandparents’, and if Jude was right it would likely happen within ten minutes.

Naturally overthinking everything, Jude had felt a little awkward with the Hipwells at first, especially after Christmas and his reconciliation with Zero. It was like Allie  _knew —_ and by that he meant, _everything_. It wasn’t like Zero was calling his mom on a daily basis to keep her updated, so Jude knew his feeling was based on literally nothing. But Zero had exactly the same goddamn eyes as her and it could be disturbing; particularly that time when Jude found himself sitting next to her at a family dinner an hour - tops, after some raunchy sex with her son.  He seriously thought he would die from embarrassment that day. 

Laura eagerly leaped down the stairs, her backpack hanging off one of her shoulders. She was getting rather tall for her age (Jude knew for fact that she was taller than Lionel’s son Esteban), and her chestnut curls bouncing above her shoulders, along with her cheerful blue eyes, were slowly but methodically turning her into a striking look-alike of her mother. 

“What did I say about taking your shoes upstairs?” Allie chided.

Laura pouted. “You said there were too many in the closet.” 

“Yes, because you  _have_  too many shoes,” her mom sighed.  

“Would you believe me if I told you I said exactly the same thing to her brother about a hundred times since we moved in?” Jude snorted. 

“The sheer amount of things that seem to have passed down to both of them never ceases to amaze me,” she grumbled, then she frowned as she looked down at the brand new pair of Adidas on her daughter’s feet; blue and yellow, the colors of UCLA. “I don’t remember buying those,” she said suspiciously. 

Laura smiled brightly. “Zero gave them to me.” 

The face of the salesperson, when he had requested this shoe size, must have been priceless; but Jude kept that thought to himself. He started laughing as Allie pulled a face. “You could have it much worse than your kids dealing and sneaking shoes,” he pointed out, and she gave him a playful nudge.  

The sound of Samuel’s car pulling into the driveway brought their attention back to more pressing matters.

“Daddy’s here, let’s go,” Laura immediately decided, bee-lining out of the living room. 

“Laura, give us five seconds, will you?” Allie turned to her husband as Samuel walked in.

They briefly talked about the twins and how the trip went, since Julian was all but willing to leave his mom, Jude gathered. Then Laura told him how everyone at school was just _livid_ because she was going to see the game and her brother was famous and that he was on _TV_. Jude couldn’t imagine it was still such a big deal to be on TV in a world where every flat surface had a screen on it, but it did make him regret that Zero couldn’t be there to hear all the excited babbling from his little sister.

Allie turned to him, putting on her denim jacket (she was rocking the casual chic look these days. “Jude, you’ve got everything?” 

“Yup, I’m good,” he smiled, adjusting the strap of his travel bag onto his shoulder.

They were supposed to land in Louisville later that morning, and their hotel rooms were booked for four days — the duration of the Sweet Sixteen and the Elite Eight. Samuel had argued that it would be criminal to risk missing Zero in the Elite Eight just because they were not officially sure the Bruins would make it that far. Plus, the NCAA was paying the travel budgets for the families anyway.

Allie turned around glancing at the suitcases leaning against the wall of the entrance, probably mentally reviewing whatever could be missing. They had figured that the easiest way to gain time would be to stick with carry-on luggage only, which had been a stretch since Laura was definitely the ‘what if’ kind; and wanted to basically take everything she had ever owned with her. Jude offered a polite hand to Samuel to take everything to the car and they soon left the neighborhood to head for LAX. Jude sent a few texts to Zero but he supposed he was busy because he didn’t get an answer, which wasn’t really surprising. According to his boyfriend’s schedule, he should be in the press room right now. Sadly the airport’s Wi-Fi was so slow that trying to load any live stream was an exercise in futility.

The flight to Louisville was an ordinary one, really. No baby wailing, no grumbling old lady, no passenger throwing a tantrum because his drink was too warm for his taste. Laura, who was in the seat next to him, spent the entire time with her headphones on, listening to an audio book with a concentrated look on her face. She had been diagnosed with dyslexia over a year and a half before, and the family was slowly starting to get accustomed to it. Jude stopped looking before he was caught staring, and instead he let his thoughts wander.

Not far, though.

About two or three hours before, Maddie had called him at 6 in the morning (it seemed to be their hour, really), while he was finishing packing. Her speech rate was so fast he could barely make out a word out of it. All he had gotten right on the first guess was that she had screwed up, or at least she was thinking she had.

“You realize you will have to tell me at some point what this is about?” Jude had told her, quirking a brow to himself.

Maddie had taken a short breath. “I told her. Nessa Werner, you know? Parker’s girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jude had asked, frowning deeply.

And so she had told him: how she mistakenly eavesdropped on her boyfriend talking to one of his teammates about Parker’s ‘sick idea’; and how she spent two days trying to decipher who she was supposed to tell it to. Jude had been surprised that she had kept it all to herself, but it wasn’t like she had known him for even half of the time he had known the Gang.

“And why do you think it’s a bad thing that you told her?” Jude had asked thoughtfully, his phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear as he was zipping his bag.

“Because… you should have seen her honestly, she was super _scary_ , and she just _left_ and, I mean, I’m not saying that what the guy did was forgivable, but I really don’t want to be in his shoes right now,” Maddie had mumbled.

“He’s a prick. He will get through it,” Jude had snapped automatically.

“Oh. We don’t like him then?”

“He leaked his _girlfriend’s nudes_ and went on pretending it was _my_ boyfriend’s fault. What do you think?” Jude sighed loudly.

After that he had tried to call Zero, just to gauge if maybe something had happened, good or bad, but he had ended up on voicemail every time and eventually given up. The last thing he wanted was for Zero to get twisted up about something like that before one of the most important games of his career so far.

*

Everything was fine.

For the first quarter, everything was fine, in Zero’s humble opinion.

Texas Tech was fighting hard, with a bunch of over-pumped rookies ready to fight tooth and nail for their very first Championship. Thing was, most of Alford’s Court players were fighting for their last chance, and fighting just as hard.

The game started off with O’Reilly, Kors, Anwar, Zero and Nando on Court. After the first quarter, O’Reilly and Anwar were replaced by the tandem Ryder/Curtis, and that’s when Zero knew the real Game was going to start from this point on. With Nando assisting him, Zero had more opportunities and managed to make things pleasantly and surprisingly balanced on both sides.

Texas Tech was destabilized by the new dynamics they hadn’t seen coming, and Zero couldn’t blame them.  He had played like a lone wolf for two years, and suddenly he had an assist. The opposite Coach was literally fuming on the bench, and fuck, that felt _good_. It’s about then that the miracle happened: a free-throw, served on a golden platter… _If_ Curtis gave him the ball.

And Curtis did.

Zero scored. Not just a simple shot, but a real dunk, and somewhere in the world Zero knew that the words ‘Waselewski made Dunk- Assisted by Curtis,’ were being written in a play by play of the game. That should have bothered him. Surprisingly it didn’t.

That could have been the perfect epilogue for a very emotional movie celebrating teamwork — except it wasn’t; they still had half the game left to play. They also were not in some Disney Movie where suddenly everyone would start singing. But it was getting better. And when half-time came, the Jumbotron flashing and the crowd cheering in the stands, Zero started thinking that _holy shit_ this was _huge_. It was like he was finally realizing that fucking _millions_ of people were watching them. They jogged to the locker room… Water. Towels. He’s got this. Before going inside, he went to talk with Alford about strategies, and it felt like Alford was listening. _He was fucking finally listening_. That hadn’t happened since the beginning of the season.

Looking back, Zero would try to remember what had been said during that short span of time. He knew it wasn’t really relevant, not now or later. He just didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t able to remember it all. No, what he was meant to remember was what people called the ‘Butterfly effect’, the fact that small and meaningless acts could provoke the most disastrous catastrophes all over the world in a blink of an eye — like the simple flutter of a pair of wings.

And of course, the flutter that was about to rock Zero’s world had been meaningless, so much he hadn’t particularly noticed it.

The locker room was filled with players and multiple people running around in an incessant come-and-go. Ten more minutes to kill before going back and hopefully finish the job. 53-41, it could be wrapped easily. They could pull this out. Drinks and snacks were on display on a huge table set at the center, but Zero didn’t really bother to grab anything else but a water bottle on his way to his cubby. He only left his bubble when he heard, among all the conversations mixing together, a frustrated blabber emanating from a small group composed of Ryder, Kors and Anwar.

“Alex this is fucking team work, okay? Grow up for fuck’s sake,” Kors protested, glaring at Ryder.

“And how was that team work to throw me under the bus?” Ryder fired back.

“Come on guys, now’s not the fucking time,” Anwar muttered.

Zero would later blame the fact that he was biased, because so far, _things were fine_ , and that’s what led him to do something he would definitely _not_ have done any other day, especially not after Morrison’s last tantrum. He got involved.

“Brighi’s looking out for you,” he simply said between two sips of water in passing, looking at Kors.

“Go away, Zero, really,” Anwar scowled, and the Captain didn’t have the time to reflect on the warning in his voice because Ryder was already scooting around.

“Oh hell, isn’t that our resident Golden Boy?” Ryder snarled.

Zero cocked an eyebrow, unimpressed, and stood there, at their level. “What is the fucking matter with you now?”

“The press conference, shithead!” he blurted.

Zero frowned confused, and he hastily tried to review everything that had been said for the thirty minutes they had been fired at by the press, but his mind was almost blank. They had talked about strategies and team related stuff. How Zero’s presence at the top of the Team had made the Bruins flip around 180 degrees yada, yada, yada, and… Ah yeah. They asked about a missed opportunity between Ryder and Kors in the Second Round, something that had cost them to get dominated during the following quarter and Alford a few pounds along the way. Kors had implied that Ryder wasn’t always on point with long-distance shots and Zero may (or may not) have said that Ryder wasn’t always on point with thinking things through in the first place.

“So what, don’t tell me you don’t have a huge tendency to do the thinking _later_ ,” Zero replied coldly.

Ryder gritted his teeth. “You seriously expect me to kiss your ass when you haven’t done shit for this Team?!”

Zero clenched his jaws painfully. “Whether you like it or not, _I’m_ the reason you’re here,” he bit back, “I’m the reason you’re playing in this Arena. I’m the reason you’ve reached the S16 at all. I’m the reason we’ve got a shot this year. I’m the reason why UCLA is even mentioned in the fucking brackets; _me_ , not your fucking ass, so you suck it and you _fucking_ respect me!”

“You’re still just a frickin’ fag,” Ryder spat out.

Zero was running on adrenaline when he looked up at him, and articulated: “Too bad every fag in the goddam world is worth ten of you.”

A dangerous sparkle flashed in Ryder’s eyes, and that’s when it happened.

The catastrophe after the flutter.

Thinking back, Zero knew he could have done something. Maybe he could have stepped away, or at least tried to do so. That’s what any sane person would have done. Except he wasn’t so sure he was sane anymore. A sane person wouldn’t have crashed his phone on the ground in plain frustration because his so-called childhood friend wasn’t picking up. A sane person wouldn’t have thrown up for ten minutes straight during halftime in the Second Round simply because he had a black bruise on his face all over again. A sane person wouldn’t avoid conflict or find themselves in a closed room with someone yelling at them, a sane person wouldn’t have felt fucking pain for a limb broken _over ten years ago_.

A sane person would have moved.

But he didn’t move. His breath caught in his throat, his heart pounding against his ribcage, and, lost in the midst, a voice whispering words he had not told himself in years.

 _Don’t think, don’t move, don’t cry_.

Don’t think about it.

Don’t move because it will get worse.

Don’t cry because no one will care.

In a split-second, his mind wrapped itself around the old, familiar feeling of dread and hopelessness, and when Ryder’s fist crushed his face; he expected it, somehow, that pain flooding in his jawbone and radiating through his cheekbone. What he hadn’t expected was that the impact would throw him off-balance.

The last thing Zero heard was his head loudly slamming against the edge of the refreshments table, before the world turned black.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several tags have been added and will continue to be added until the end of the story (:  
> don't forget to keep track of them every once in a while if you don't want to risk a bad surprise!

“That’s so _cool_ ,” Laura gaped in astonishment, her mouth full of hotdog, as a team of Air Dunkers were showing off their best jumping skills to an over-excited crowd, propelling themselves off the ground as if gravity barely existed at all.

The first time Jude had seen a Dunk contest, it was during his senior year, and he was _not_ ready to see his stupid boyfriend literally flying over the tallest guy in the room with a basketball in one hand and his crotch less than an inch above the guy’s head. That was the last time he had tried to play it casual with knowing next to nothing about basketball.

Jude gave a small nudge to his little sister-in-law sitting next to him, leaning down so she could hear him above the crowd. “Wasn’t your brother supposed to teach you that?”

Samuel and Allie had gone to buy more drinks during halftime, and Laura was chewing the second hotdog her mother had told her not to eat — it was supposed to be Jude’s, but he could hardly eat anything with the stress of the competition attacking his nervous system. On her lap, the discarded ear plugs that her dad had told her to wear, before he got bored of telling her to put them back in whenever she took them off. Pretty typical evening in the Hipwell household, Jude had long figured.

“Have you seen the basketball hoop above the garage door?” she asked between two bites.

Jude frowned, cocking his head. “There’s no basketball hoop.”

“Not since Zero tried to teach me,” Laura said with a shrug.

Jude was still laughing when Allie and Samuel returned and scrambled their way back to their seats. The performers made one last spectacular stunt, the crowd burst into applause, then they quickly exited the Court and preparations were made for the beginning of the second half. Various people from UCLA and Texas Tech’s staffs reappeared on the sidelines, while the bench personnel were flooding back the bench. The players soon followed and jogged to the Court, UCLA and Texas Tech alike, only parting ways to stretch out a little. Jude’s smile was soon replaced by a frown.

Zero was nowhere to be seen.

A quick look to his right told him that Zero’s parents were just as perplexed as he was. The crowd was so loud around them that they couldn’t do much more than exchange looks and frowns. Jude straightened a little, trying to get a decent view of the bench. Why on earth would Alford pull Zero out for the second half? It didn’t make sense. The Bruins on Court were DiAnthony, O’Reilly, Kors, Curtis and Crawford respectively, who was stepping out for the first time on a March Madness Court.

That didn’t make sense, Jude kept repeating to himself. He was scanning the sidelines over and over again but there was no sign of Zero there. Where the hell was his boyfriend? A soft pat on his arm made his head snap up.

“Dad wants me to switch spots,” Laura said with a shrug and Jude nodded after exchanging a quick look with Samuel.

Jude got up and Laura slipped into his seat, prompting Jude to sit down next to his stepfather-in-law. “Ever seen something like that? Two players vanishing off the bench?” Samuel said, leaning closer so that Jude could hear him above the game.

Jude gave him a puzzled look. “Hold on, who else is missing?”

“I don’t know. I thought it was Kors but I just saw him on Court,” his stepfather-in-law commented.

Jude tried to remember all fifteen names on the Team but it was hard given that his heartbeat was seriously starting to pick up. And then it hit him, like a goddamn truck, Ryder. Ryder wasn’t there. Ryder was missing too. All the members of the Team were supposed to be on the bench. That was condition n°1, that was part of the _deal_. That was written in all caps in the NCAA handbook.

That’s when his eyes stumbled over Tyler, taking him by surprise to the point he had to double-check.

Tyler was in charge of restricting access to the locker room and escorting the players in and out of the Court; he had no last name, he was just ‘Tyler’, big, tall Tyler, with his ever impeccable black suits and his blue ties matching the Bruins’ colors.

Everybody knew Tyler.

Everybody also knew that Tyler never moved more than a few feet away from his designated spot. But it didn’t explain why he was now climbing over there, scanning the rows in their section. Tyler looked at him, then at Samuel and finally at Allie, his glance jumping from one to the next in a split-second. The man made his way to them, careful not to trip over anything in the ridiculously small space between crowded rows, and when he leaned over them to talk, it was as surprising as hearing any other security guard — off, different, alien.

“Mr. Hipwell, Mrs. Hipwell,” he said, using the back of Laura’s seat and the other in front of her to lean over them, “you need to come with me.”

Allie looked up at him, taken aback. “What? Why?”

“I don’t know, Ma’am. It comes from the Coaches, they said it was an emergency,” Tyler said.

Jude’s blood ran cold in his veins while Allie and Samuel were exchanging looks and stood up. Something was wrong. Zero was not here, Zero was not on Court, he was not on the bench, and neither was Ryder, and now they asked for Allie and Samuel to come. _Something is wrong_. For a second Jude was so lost in his thoughts, those exact words whirling around in his head, he couldn’t barely pay attention to the outside world.

“Jude,” Samuel said, waving a hand in front of his eyes.

He felt his throat tightening as he begrudgingly stood up to give them enough space to head out.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re coming too, chop, chop, chop,” Allie chided, gesturing for him to move his fucking ass.

Laura didn’t miss one bit of the conversation, strangely enough; she immediately gathered her stuff, and because she was the skinniest and the smallest among them, squirmed out of the row with ease. She was standing next to Tyler, looking up at him every now and then as he was waiting for them. The four of them hurried down the stairs. The man escorted them along the back of the sidelines, pushing their way until they reached the entrance of the tunnel snaking its way under the stands and leading to the locker rooms.

The hall was more crowded than Jude would have thought during a game. Managers, personnel, members of the staff were talking all at the same time, a mess of conversations filling the acoustic space left by the game and the roars of the crowd in the stands above their heads. Tyler kept striding at a military pace until they reached the entrance of the locker room, and a man Jude remembered seeing a handful of times in the past immediately hovered next to them. _Paul Brighi, Assistant Coach,_ his badge said in high caps.

“Mrs. Waselewski,” the man said, then gave a nod to Tyler.

“ _Hipwell_ ,” Allie corrected more harshly than Jude had ever heard her speak. “Will you finally tell us what the hell is going on?” she blurted out as Brighi didn’t look like he was going to move.

“There’s been an… an incident,” Brighi started slowly, searching for his words. “A locker room situation involving Zero and another player.”

“Where is he?” Allie and Jude said with a same voice.

Brighi stopped, pointing at the open door next to them. “In the back, in the showers.”

“Is he okay? What happened?” Samuel intervened.

The Assistant Coach winced. “He’s not _exactly_ okay. Long story short, he needs medical attention, and we need to take him to the hospital. We should have taken off almost fifteen minutes ago but, er, you know what? You should go and see him first,” he said, looking at Allie.

“Did he ask for me?” she asked, sounding nervous all of a sudden.

The Assistant Coach stared at her as if she was speaking a foreign language. “Well, no, but we can’t exactly _wait_ for him to do so, _he needs help_ , and right now you’re the best solution we had. He’s having a meltdown,” Brighi eventually said. “He shoved away the medical team and we haven’t even been able to put him on a stretcher so far.”

Allie turned to Jude mid-sentence. “You should go see him. You know how he is- I can’t risk…” _I can’t risk having him reject me on top of things_ , was what she was trying to say, but Jude simply nodded, swallowed past the lump in his throat and swung the doors open without waiting for Brighi’s approval. The locker room was a huge space with cubbies aligned against the wall, littered with water bottles, discarded towels, even shoes. Jude barely noticed anything as he walked through the empty room, to the swing doors marking the entrance of the showers.

It seemed surprisingly silent given everything happening outside.

Zero was sitting on the tiled floor, under a silent showerhead, legs to his chest, his head tucked between his elbows as his hands were gripping at his shoulder blades, so hard that it emphasized all the veins on his arms. Two men were crouched down next to him, but neither of them were Alford, or even a teammate, and that in itself made Jude’s blood boil in a split-second. They treated Zero as a star only when they needed to, only when things were working just fine.

“Get the hell out of here,” he heard himself saying.

The two men gave him a puzzled face, but Jude’s patience was literally nonexistent as he spat a “ _Get out_ ” that echoed against the walls. They got up and withdrew from Zero’s personal space, not quite leaving at first; the tallest of them seemed to finally make a connection as he glanced between Zero and him a few times, then they headed for the exit. Jude didn’t wait for the sound of the doors to swing closed; in two steps he was next to Zero. His boyfriend didn’t move away, but his shoulders were painfully slumping up and down as he took shallow, raspy breaths.

“Oh my god, what happened to you,” Jude whispered, more to himself than to Zero, as he knelt down next to him. There was nothing but silence. “Zero?” he called tentatively, scooting closer. “Zero, hey.” He reached out and tried to touch his arm, but it seemed like Jude had burnt him; as soon as his fingertips ghosted over his skin, Zero violently flinched away, his back slamming against the wall.

“ _Don’t touch me_ ,” Zero spat out, face still hidden by his arms.

Jude forced himself to keep trying. “Zero, _Zero_ ,” he called out again, louder this time, as he placed both his hands on Zero’s shoulders, not giving up even as Zero started fussing and struggling, more and more strongly.

Jude forcefully knocked his elbows away and struggled to get a hold of his chin, wincing when Zero’s fist collided with his stomach. “Gideon! It’s me!” he insisted, loud enough to cover Zero’s never-ending protests, “It’s _me_ , Jude!”

For a terrifying second Zero seemed to pause. Then he continued in his effort to try and escape from his grip, but Jude felt like it was finally weakening. “Look at me,” he demanded, and he forced Zero’s chin up more as he waited for a genuine reaction.

Zero’s eyes were a painful red, glassy, unfocused; a bruise was yet again forming under the right one, seemingly mirroring the fading one on his left cheek. _What did they do to you this time_ , he wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure he could get the words out. “Zero, it’s okay,” Jude said, softer, cupping his face with his hand. “It’s okay, baby,” he said again trying to keep his voice steady. “It’s okay. You’re okay, you’re safe,” he repeated a few times more, and Zero’s kicking started to slow down as Jude wrapped his arms in an iron grip around him.

He could still feel him struggling, but his kicks grew weaker and weaker. “You’re okay, baby. It’s going to be fine,” Jude repeated quieter.

*

Zero was half-asleep.

Or at least he thought he was.

It was the only logical explanation for that weird, barely conscious state he was floating into. He could feel the weight of the blankets pulled up his chest, which came up as a bit of a surprise, because he didn’t remember leaving the Arena. He didn’t know exactly where he was. He just didn’t mind being there because it was quiet, for the most part at least.

He woke up a few times, some he recalled and most he didn’t.

At one point he heard people talking, but his mind was too hazy to understand a word of it; it didn’t take more than a few seconds for him to drift back asleep.

He woke up again, and this time he saw Jude, sitting close by.

“Hey,” Jude said gently, but his voice was echoing weirdly, and the only coherent thought that Zero had for a short second was that he didn’t remember taking drugs, so why did it feel like he was high?

He woke up later without remembering falling back asleep, cracking an eye open to the light of the hallway flooding the room through the door hanging ajar. People were talking again. Voices he was sure he knew but couldn’t quite pinpoint. Someone talked louder. Zero closed his eyes again, squeezing them shut.

 _Just leave me alone_.

It took superhuman effort to roll onto his side, hugging himself and trying to dig his face into his noisy pillow. This time, though, his mind was getting a little clearer, a little less hazy, and no matter how hard he tried to fall back into this blissfully solitary (and salvaging) state of unconsciousness, his brain refused to obey. Outside the voices finally grew quieter; then faded in the background. The door opened and someone padded in; Zero’s eyes sluggishly fluttered open as a mildly pissed-off-looking Jude appeared in his blurry visual field.

“Oh, hi,” Jude said suddenly, his expression melting. “You’re awake.”

The only answer that could escape Zero’s throat was a faint grunt that sounded alien even to himself. Now that he was slowly waking up, he was becoming increasingly hyper aware of the bad taste in his mouth, of the painful lump in his throat and of the screaming headache.

“I’ll call the nurse, then,” Jude said after a minute of standing by the bedside.

On its own accord, Zero’s hand shot up, only fast enough to grab the hem of Jude’s hoodie, causing him to wince, because he hadn’t yet realized that his left wrist was wrapped in gauze, probably for a good reason.

“Oh shit, I’m- I’m sorry, hey, you okay?” Jude stammered, guilty as if he had hurt him on purpose. He finally shuffled closer until he hovered above him.

Zero didn’t know how it happened; he just knew it kind of did.

Suddenly there was Jude, and Jude’s concerned face, and his beautiful eyes that looked strangely greyer than usual, and his smell and even the softness of his hoodie under his touch. Zero’s head was hurting and spinning a little and everything felt weird-

Jude’s face fell even more. “Zero, baby, why are you crying? What’s wrong? Does it hurt?” he said hurriedly, brushing Zero hair away from his face as the tears streamed down his cheeks.

 _Everything_ , Zero wanted to say.

 _Everything is wrong_.

_Everything hurts._

*

Jude had no idea how things got even messier, but in any case, they did.

UCLA had literally been chewed up and spat out during the second half, and although Jude cared very little about the game whenever it didn’t involve his boyfriend (because let’s be honest, Zero would have never been ready to play a hypothetical Elite Eight two days after his breakdown), he was forced to admit that the Bruins smashed out of the Tournament, in fifteen minutes straight, indeed had some major consequences. The fact that two players, including the star Captain, had missed the second half the night of the Sweet Sixteen, to begin with. The Team had made it plain that they didn’t want Zero’s presence at the Norton Healthcare Hospital of Louisville to spread around before they’ve even decided on the tale they wanted to tell. They had handed over enough non-disclosure agreements to make sure of it.

Objectively, neither Jude nor the Hipwells knew exactly what had happened in the locker room, or how it happened. At one point during the night, Brighi eventually admitted that Zero’s concussion was due to him hitting his head after receiving a punch, but that was as far as they had been told. Allie was so furious that she wanted to sue the entire Team, and even Samuel had a difficult time keeping his own nerves in check. What about Zero? Zero was fine. Physically, at least, save for a sprained wrist a mild concussion that would probably result in mild headaches and dizziness. Mentally… That was something else entirely. Shortly after the checkup, Zero had been plunged into an induced sleep for two days straight. Alford and the rest of the Team personnel paid a visit, but the players were kept at bay and Jude wasn’t sure he would have been able to avoid yelling and kicking some ass — and, well, he hadn’t really been able to avoid _yelling_ at Alford in the first place.

“You mean that Ryder is still on the Team?” he had blurted out in the middle of the hallway.

“He’s profoundly shocked about what happened,” Alford had said earnestly. “He’s ready to apologize.”

“ _Shocked_?!” Jude had yelled. “No one gives a damn about his apologies! In what world do you punch people around like that?! _He could have killed him_!”

Zero, _his boyfriend_ , could have ended up in one of those outlets recounting a minor incident that turned out to have dramatic repercussions, and _why?_ Because some jealous brat decided that punching was okay?

The Coach and most of the staff left the hospital shortly afterwards, and the Team as a whole set off for Los Angeles the following morning, as the NCAA had it planned regardless of what had happened behind the scenes during the Sweet Sixteen. Brighi, a female manager and two or three more personnel from the Bruins’ staff remained behind to take care of things. Tournament wise, UCLA’s ejection from the Championship had caused literally every bracket to make a backflip. On the morning following the Game, the NCAA issued a statement that Zero had been pulled out for ‘medical reasons’, which, in sports, meant little more than: ‘He was pulled out because he was pulled out’. Later that day, the NH Hospital published its own statement that he was being treated for exhaustion — and that was what lit the actual fire, in fact. ‘Exhaustion’ could go from drug-abuse to self-harm to, basically, a _whim_. It meant nothing and everything, and it pissed Jude off, because it downplayed the seriousness of Zero’s breakdown into something he had caused himself, one way or another.

Morrison had taken upon himself to bring Zero’s personal stuff back to the hospital from the Arena, and Jude barely bothered to check it until the familiar ringtone of Zero’s phone emerged from the depths of the bag. With a cocked eyebrow, Jude stared at the shattered iPhone where Terrence’s face was smiling at him.

“ _Z, hey buddy_ ,” Terrence’s relieved voice exhaled on the other end.

“Sorry, it’s just me,” Jude replied dryly as he dropped himself on one of the plastic chairs outside of Zero’s room.

There was a short silence, probably surprised. _“Jude, what the hell is going on with your boo? He called me like ten times before the game; and then during the_ game _and ever since people are going crazy about it and he won’t pick up the damn phone! What the hell is going on?”_

“I can’t tell you because _I don’t know_. Zero got punched in the face, and after that it just went overboard. I think- I think everything came back from, you know… His life before. He’s been totally out since then,” Jude whispered.

Another moment passed as Terrence was digesting the information. “ _Did he try- Did he try, like, to hurt himself?”_   he asked nervously, his voice sounding hollow.

Jude’s eyes snapped up and his heart painfully clenched. “No! No- nothing like that.”

“ _Fucking hell_ ,” Terrence grunted to himself. _“I freaked out, J. I freaked out really bad. My dad picked up the last time he tried calling, and he told me he sounded nervous and weird. And that exhaustion thing, it’s- you know it’s code for when real bad shit happens_ ,” Terrence mumbled, dejected.

Jude tried to sound optimistic but he wasn’t sure of what he was even saying anymore. He promised to keep him updated, all the while secretly wishing there was nothing groundbreaking to announce. _Zero says he will kick your ass for failing him. Zero says you owe him one. Zero says Duke wouldn’t stand a chance if you two had met on Court._

Saturday afternoon, Zero was discharged after a psychiatric evaluation, and the words were officially said out loud: he suffered from clinical depression, and had probably been for several years, although not with the same intensity. Whether he wanted it or not, he would have to get a therapist, and the doctors didn’t exclude a longer period of prolonged sleep treatment once back in Los Angeles. ESPN was the first to suggest that Zero’s sudden medical condition was probably about his shoulder again, but it was before they found out that there seemed to be no logical explanation as to why Ryder would be pulled out of the bench as well. That same day was the Elite Eight, and someone had dropped the question that even Jude asked himself: _What really happened in the Bruins’ Locker Room?_ It sounded dramatic. It kind of was, judging by Zero’s behavior ever since he had woken up.

Since his boyfriend’s CT scans came back clear, the doctors agreed to let him fly back to Los Angeles, and UCLA’s private jet came back to Louisville on Sunday morning to fetch the rest of the staff, Zero, and because everyone wanted to avoid another similar situation as during the game, Jude. The Hipwells had taken a flight back the night before, despite the Elite Eight (which wasn’t really appealing anymore), and soon Jude found himself packing his stuff and heading for the airport with his mute boyfriend.

In the jet, Zero sat in his seat; face turned toward the window, and remained silent for most of the six hour flight. Jude tried his best not to ask stupid questions, not to bother him, not to touch him even, but it was getting harder and harder as the hours went on.

“How’s your wrist?”, he eventually broke and asked when Zero woke up at one point, his blue eyes slowly fluttering open and a sleepy frown scrunching his face.

“Fine,” Zero muttered without really looking at anything in particular.

“I-uh, I negotiated with Alford. He doesn’t mind you living off-campus if… well, if you attend regular appointments and checkups,” Jude said, trying to sound casual. “We’re going home.”

Zero hummed in response and shuffled in his seat, gathering his longs legs against his chest. “I just want everything to stop,” he mumbled.

It was so quiet that Jude wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it at all.

But he did.

And it hurt.

 


	23. Chapter 23

The flat was quiet.

Jude was doing whatever he was doing in silence in the living-room, the neighbors were off to their daily-life; even the traffic was strangely quiet in the middle of the afternoon. Zero was staring at the ceiling of their bedroom, barely moving his eyelids to blink. It was as far as he could move, as far as he _wanted_ to move. Two days had passed since they had come back from Louisville and he wasn’t sure he had said two words ever since. Jude wasn’t pushing; he was taking care of him and at the same time he managed not to overwhelm him. He was giving updates to Allie and Samuel, to the rest of the Willwights who had called often, and to the rest of the Gang.

Jude was perfect.

And Zero was the worst boyfriend in the world. There were moments he wanted to speak, to crack a joke even half-heartedly, but the words just didn’t come out. Jude was trying so hard to be what he needed and Zero wasn’t even good enough to man the fuck up and act like an adult. Every time he promised himself he’d stop screwing up and dragging Jude into his mess, and every time he failed a little more. That’s mostly the reason he had stayed in this bedroom for two days straight. Not so much because he was tired, but because he didn’t want to be constantly bothering Jude. Next quarter was starting tomorrow morning and Jude surely had other shit to worry about than his boyfriend. Objectively, Zero also had other shit to worry about, like classes to attend, now that the basketball season was mostly wrapped up. Thing was, he hadn’t really been concerned about his academic degree in ages, and starting now it felt even less appealing. Up until now basketball was his career plan. Except that he wasn’t sure he had a career to plan anymore, because ‘depression’ was now written in red on his medical records and no one would ever bet on a depressed rookie.

So here he was.

Zero. 20 years old. Fake blond hair, barely tall enough to be a baller, too skinny to be an efficient small forward. Lousy boyfriend. Academic fraud.

Maybe his Grandfather was right from the beginning. Maybe he actually was like his deadbeat father.

He rolled onto his side, staring at nothing. He heard the faint sound of the front door opening and a conversation taking place.

“… You aren’t serious,” Jude’s voice said after a while.

“I very much am. Now, you take this, and that, okay maybe this too, and you get out,” the other voice decided among Jude’s protests, and after fifteen seconds tops, the front door closed itself.

Zero closed his eyes, waiting for what he knew was about to follow.

The door of the bedroom opened, followed by the soft thud of shoes being kicked off, and then the mattress moved underneath him; a shadow briefly masked the light filtering through his closed eyelids, then there was a wriggle and a soft sigh.

He slowly fluttered his eyes open, meeting Kyle’s. She was lying on her back, and it reminded him of all those sleepovers they had when they were younger.

“You’re always asking why I care so much,” she whispered after a moment, “Why I waltzed in when you were in bed with Jude, why I pressured you about Nessa, why I was worried about that stupid plaid shirt.” She paused for a moment and her eyes fell on an invisible spot in the distance. “The reason I care so much, is because of that week you spent at my house when we were ten. You remember?” He didn’t answer but she didn’t seem like she was counting on it. She turned to her side, facing him. Her face was mere inches away from his but it wasn’t uncomfortable. “You had spent the week with us, with Mom and Taylor. It was the longest you had ever stayed so far. You still had your darker hair,” she said, almost like an afterthought, and she softly tugged on a light strand of his hair. “That Sunday night, you said you had to go home. I didn’t want you to, but Mom convinced me that it was okay, that you had a home you needed to go back to. So I let you go.”

Zero closed his eyes at the memory. He was feeling so numb that even his heartbeat didn’t pick up, when it normally would have.

“I stopped caring for twelve hours,” Kyle pressed on quietly, “and the next morning, you came to school with a broken arm.”

He remembered it, even the pain. That excruciating pain that seemed to eat him up alive. Then Carla sighing, annoyed, and shoved him in the antique Toyota Camry, telling her husband that he could _at least_ have the decency not to ruin her night by forcing her to go to the ER. After that the cast seemed to weigh too much for his whole body, and it barely got any more bearable when everyone started drawing on it. It had taken two more years after that, more broken ribs, a twisted wrist, for him to finally decide he wasn’t going to make it if he kept waiting for something good to happen. He had been hanging around Doc Hudson’s workshop for almost three years; he had long known where the spare key was hidden. He started sleeping in the back of an SUV that had been there forever; it wasn’t much of a stretch, he was still annoyingly short for his age. Terrence, Derek, and even Raquel, who was just average now, were all towering over him already. Sometimes he was sleeping at Kyle’s. After they turned 13, it became more difficult, because her mom didn’t like the idea of a boy sleeping with her daughter on a regular basis, and Zero had just stopped counting on Kyle to sneak him inside. It wasn’t her place to take such risk, though back then it seemed like a huge one, when in the end it really wasn’t.

She let out a small breath and wriggled even closer. “There will be better days. There will be better people,” she whispered, softly brushing his hair out of his eyes, “but there’s only one you. And nothing, no one, in the whole world, is worth giving up on yourself.”

He didn’t stay silent on purpose, out of pride or out of embarrassment. He just didn’t feel like it. It felt too exhausting to even talk, right here, right now. Kyle didn’t seem to mind — he wasn’t sure she would mind anything coming from him, and he wished he could tell her how much he loved her, if he wasn’t just an asshole to her the majority of the time.

“It’s going to be fine again. I promise,” she said, brushing his cheek with her thumb.

*

It was 5 PM, the last of Jude’s classes had just ended and he couldn’t possibly get out fast enough from the building, _from the Campus_ , for an entire three-day weekend. A week had come and gone since the Sweet Sixteen. Zero had been admitted for another three-day stay in the Ronald Reagan Hospital of UCLA, and after that, had his first couple of appointments with his therapist. His wrist had gotten better, although he would still be wearing his splint for a couple of days. And that was mostly it. Jude couldn’t believe he had managed to hold back his nerves long enough to leave his boyfriend by himself for an entire week. Granted, he had been a little busy with his sleep therapy and stuff, and that’s partly how Jude had been able to go back to Campus in the first place. But…

_I just want everything to stop_.

How could anyone seriously think it was easy after hearing that comment on the plane? How was Jude supposed to interpret that, if not that _his boyfriend was suicidal_? In all fairness, he was totally freaked out. The mere idea of screwing up kept him awake at night.

It started raining on the way back home and Jude cursed when he found himself blocked in a giant traffic jam, thanks to some sort of ridiculous pile-up that had Los Angeles already disastrous traffic literally _blow up_. It took him another half-an-hour before he finally was able to get to his building, to his utter frustration. Jude grumbled as he ruffled his wet hair, looking at one of the steely walls of the elevator.

He was met with absolute silence when he got home, and he closed the door quietly before letting go of the shoulder strap of his bag. He was only partly suspicious about it; Kyle had volunteered to spend the afternoon with Zero again, arguing that she had a day-off anyway. Although she was quite renowned for making things noisy, she had proven the other day that she was more than capable of adjusting, depending on the circumstances. Jude couldn’t deny he hadn’t been a tiny, _tiny_ bit jealous when he had come back after she had thrown him out, only to find Zero sleeping with his face buried in the crook of her neck (and also a few inches away from her boobs, but that was not the moment to make a scene, _right_?) when he was itching _so bad_ to touch him _at all_.

Jude made his way to the bedroom in the quiet flat, preparing himself, once again, to stumble over the 2021 version of the infamous Hollow Creek High Mean Twins™ — Raquel and Derek had declared the name back in the old days. However, the bedroom was empty of any living soul, and the bed was even made. Jude furrowed his brow in mild confusion. That meant Zero had done something other than just stare at the ceiling, which was always a plus, but he wondered where the hell Kyle had taken him. He fidgeted for a moment before he dialed Kyle’s number, but he gave up after the third ring. If she wasn’t picking up now, she wouldn’t pick up at all. He considered calling Zero but something was holding him back. He frowned, went back to the kitchen, and did the stupidest thing in the world.

“Are Kyle and Zero downstairs?” Jude asked when Raquel picked up.

“Nope,” Raquel replied. “And I doubt they are even together since she was called for an emergency shift this afternoon.”

“Really?” Jude mumbled, already hating that horrible feeling building up in his stomach.

“Is everything okay? Do you want me to come upstairs?”

“No, it’s fine. Thanks,” and he hung up, tossing his phone onto the hardwood countertop.

Zero was supposed to be there, with Kyle, because she had a _day-off_.

And now Kyle was working and Zero was God knows where, because Jude doubted that today was the ‘bring your depressed best friend to work’ day, so the fact that he followed her there wasn’t likely. Jude felt his frustration quickly turning into deep worry as the minutes went by in the silent apartment. Outside, the rain had doubled and was now whipping at the large window of the living-room. His heart was drumming in his chest, painfully reminding him that things were not fine. What if Zero had another breakdown? What if there had been no one to draw him back to reality this time? What if-

Jude eventually snatched his phone off the countertop and dialed Zero’s number. One ring. Two rings. His insides twisted when he heard the faint sound of his boyfriend’s ringtone, dull and distant. Phone pressed to his ear, Jude strode out of the kitchen, trying to make up where the sound was coming from, when the front door opened, stopping him right in his tracks. Zero was standing in the entrance, waving his still shattered phone, a basketball under his arm. He was dripping wet, his hair sticking to his temples and his cheekbones, his long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants hugging tightly to his shivering body.

_Thank God, you’re there_. Jude barely held back the words, disconnecting the call and walking to his boyfriend.

“I thought I’d have time to come back before you,” Zero mumbled, averting his eyes after he kicked the door closed with his foot.

“No, it’s… it’s fine. I just thought- maybe the rain and stuff,” Jude said quickly, hardly able to keep the maelstrom of emotions swirling around his head in check, going from relief to anger to frustration.

Zero seemed to pause for a moment, like he was about to say something, but then he shook his head, put down his basketball next to the couch and headed for the bathroom. Jude dropped himself on the couch as soon as he heard the shower spray, burying his face in his hands. What a fucking, fucking, _fucking mess_. He stayed like that for a moment, just trying to gather his fucking thoughts, but all he could think about was that awful moment he didn’t know where Zero was, or if he was okay. Should he talk to someone about that line in the plane? Was it really what Zero had meant? If his therapist was a real professional, they would recognize the signs if Zero was suicidal, right?

_How can you just take the fucking risk?!_

Jude stood bolt upright, swirling around on the spot, interlocking his fingers behind his head. He should do something. He should order dinner or review his notes or literally _anything_. Zero would come out of the shower and Jude couldn’t possibly look like he was just on the verge of hyperventilating. Half-heartedly, he ordered a pizza and kept fidgeting in the living-room until the delivery boy arrived.

“Zero?” he called out, knocking on the door of the bathroom. There was no answer, and Jude bit his bottom lip. “Zero,” he said again, trying to sound casual.

He was about to knock for the third time when there was a thump, followed by a series of curses. Jude frowned and swung the door open.

“I can’t put this fucking shit on,” Zero blurted in plain frustration, throwing his splint in the bathroom sink.

Jude gave a sorry smile and picked up the splint. “Come on, let me help,” he said calmly. Zero silently held out his hurt wrist and Jude carefully let his fingers ghost over the skin, wrapping and closing the Velcro fasteners. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Dinner is ready,” he concluded.

He barely had time to turn around when Zero let out a quiet: “Jude I can’t do this.”

Jude froze and turned back. “I can’t- I can’t do this anymore,” Zero said again, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, in his hoodie that seemed strangely too big for him.

“W-What do you mean?” Jude asked faintly.

Zero looked up, his blue eyes lacking their usual sparkle. “I’m not- I’m not fine. That’s it. It’s official, I’m not fine. I know I’ve been saying the opposite for months but now- now I’m telling you I’m not fine.  You were right, it’s not- things are _not_ okay,” he blurted out in a breath. “But I can’t- I can’t have you looking at me like I’m about to explode or going to throw myself off the rooftop all the damn time.”

Jude gaped, taken aback, heartbeat racing. “Zero, I-“

“Let me finish,” Zero interrupted him. “I just need you okay? I don’t need a therapist at home. I don’t need you- I don’t need you to be _perfect_ and to read all that stuff on how to take care of your depressed boyfriend. I need you to screw up. I need you to ask if I’m okay even if I’m not. I need you to complain about your day. I need you to touch me, _hell_ , even to yell at me. I just- I’ve got a therapist, and I’ve got a Coach, and I’ve got Allie and Samuel, and I just- I just need my _boyfriend_.” Zero’s voice broke on the last word, his eyes dropping to the ground, shoulders slumped.

Jude swallowed thickly, trying to ignore the lump in his throat. “I’ve got another class with Vargas. I hate her, she’s a total bitch to me,” he whispered, voice trembling a little. Zero looked up at him, wiping unshed tears away with his sleeve. Jude stepped closer and dropped himself next to him on the edge of the tub, their shoulders touching softly. “And there was- there was this shitty traffic jam on my way back. The fucking traffic was frozen for like, more than half-an-hour, I thought I’d never make it home.”

“Worse than the last time you picked me up at the airport?” Zero asked after a second.

“Way worse. They said there was a pile-up on the 405, around North Hills. And with all the people from Campus…” He mimicked an explosion with his hands, then turned towards Zero.

They looked at each other for a moment in silence; Jude shifted slightly, just enough to be able to brush his knuckles against his cheek. Zero closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, and soon Jude wrapped an arm around his waist, holding him tight as his boyfriend rested his forehead against his temple. 

“I love you,” Jude said softly. “Whether you’re fine, or not. You’re still my man. And I’m still yours.”

*

It was the first time Derek, Raquel, Kyle, Zero and Jude were finding themselves all together since the beginning of March Madness, and frankly, if it wasn’t to watch Terrence play for the Final Four live on TV, Zero would have passed. But it wasn’t like Terrence would have another chance to make it that far in the Tournament again — hopefully it was his last year as a Blue Devil — so Zero joined Jude downstairs, at Kyle and Raquel’s. After a couple of unsettling minutes, Zero started to breathe a little easier, mostly because he was huddled between the armrest of the couch and Jude’s side and so far, there hadn’t been much in the way of awkward stares. As for the conversations, Zero couldn’t really tell; he had a little trouble following them these days, like his mind automatically shut itself down after some time.

“If you feel like leaving to go watch it at home, you just tell me, okay?” Jude had told him before everyone gathered in the girls’ living-room.

Zero nodded, and forced a tight smile onto his lips. He didn’t know why it was so hard to _smile_ and _talk_ in the first place. Even when he sometimes felt like he managed to smile, he could tell Jude knew it was only on the surface. The usual sparkle of fondness in his boyfriend’s gaze in response wasn’t there. Raquel came back from dropping Miguel off at her parents’ house — he heard Disneyworld in the foggy conversation — and soon Kyle started squirming in front of the TV.

“Guys, I-uh. I’ve got to tell you something,” she mumbled, tugging at her Dutch braids on her shoulders. “I may have invited someone over.”

There was shocked silence, and even Zero stared at her blankly.

So Kyle had a boyfriend.

When did that happen?

And why was he the last one to learn about it? Apparently, judging by the mess of conversations that soon followed, everyone already had an opinion on that. Zero tried to remember but his mind was totally blank. He could hardly remember where he was last Christmas, so….

“I’m sorry, what?” he asked when he realized she was staring at him.

Kyle stepped closer and perched herself on the armrest. “I’d get it if you didn’t feel like seeing someone else here,” she said. It sounded genuine, but maybe she was just trying to come up with a good excuse to just chicken out and tell her boo to come another day.

“It’s fine,” he huffed with a small shrug.

She remained there for a moment, biting at her bottom lip, until the doorbell rang and Raquel immediately jumped out of her seat to open the door. The fact that Kyle was still sitting next to Zero should probably have worried him. In any case, the puppy-dog eyes she gave him definitely did the job. Zero cocked an eyebrow, looking up at her.

“Don’t be mad at me,” she mumbled sheepishly, then she leaned down and planted a noisy kiss on his cheek, probably leaving a mess of dark purple lipstick that he didn’t have the strength to erase with his sleeve.

“Kyle-,” he said, strong enough to only be half freaking out.

“Just so we’re clear, I didn’t sign up for polyamory stuff,” a familiar voice deadpanned from behind.

“You’re Kyle’s goddam unicorn?!” Jude sputtered next to him, eyes wide.

“I’m her _what now_?”

Since Zero’s world had been pretty much running in slow motion for the last couple of days, it wasn’t surprising that he was the last one to scoot around and take a look at the young man standing behind the couch. Zero’s eyes travelled up from the black jeans to the blue Henley, to the ever so slightly annoyed expression and a well-known pair of dark-brown eyes watching him with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t like what is happening,” Zero said faintly as Kyle eventually padded behind the couch to draw _Ted_ into the living-room.

“Well, hello to you too,” Ted greeted him sarcastically. “Fancy seeing you here.”

 “Wait, how do you guys know each other?” Raquel asked with a puzzled face.

“Raquel, this is Ted,” Derek commented helpfully. “Zero’s roommate on Campus.”

“You told me he was a hipster?” Jude said to Raquel.

She shrugged. “I said that he looked more like a hipster than a unicorn. And I had only seen him from afar.”

“When did you see him?”

“I don’t know, once when I came by.”

Zero’s attention drifted away from the conversation, and for a moment he simply stared at Kyle and Ted sitting on the same armchair, her once again perched on the armrest, then he deliberately averted his eyes. He didn’t know if he should be relieved for the fact that the attention was focused on someone else or worried that Kyle was dating someone he had a little trouble getting along with. He must have been silent for a long time because Jude started tugging at their interlocked fingers, seeking his gaze. Zero gave him a nod and tried to focus his attention on the TV, where the game was starting. Zero hadn’t even realized yet that Terrence (and Duke) was facing North Carolina, and thus his little brother Clarence — who wasn’t on Court yet, but that would probably happen at some point. He tried his best to find an interest in the game, he really tried, but after halftime, when the focus returned to the Court, his good will snapped.

He dropped Jude’s hand and stood up, mumbling an ‘excuse-me’ as he rounded the couch and walked out the front door. When the elevator doors closed themselves behind him, he stumbled back against the wall, letting out a heavy breath, and he barely got enough strength to drag himself out of the small place to fumble for his keys and open the door of his own apartment. He would probably have waited a little outside if he wasn’t afraid that Jude could find him in the hallway — or worse, their neighbors’ daughter. Instead, he dragged himself into the kitchen, and retrieved a water bottle from the fridge, before dropping himself sitting flat on the ground. The door opened not long after, or maybe it was longer than that, he didn’t really know. Jude soon crouched down next to him, softly pressing his knees.

“What if I feel like this for goddamn ever?” Zero whispered. “What if I can never play again?”

There was a short silence. “You were watching a game in which you’re not very emotionally involved,” Jude said gently. “It doesn’t mean you’d react the same way on Court.”

“But what if I do?” Zero insisted, looking up.

“’What if’ scenarios shouldn’t hold back anybody,” Jude admitted with a small smile. “That’s what Lionel would say.” He became serious again. “Zero, you haven’t played since the Sweet Sixteen. Not on a Court, not in a real game. You know better than I do that nothing is ever the same on and off the Court, that’s what makes each game different. It might take a little time for you to adjust, but people are here to help you figure out what makes you feel the way you feel. And if you can’t play, if you decide not to play… Well I don’t care if I’m dating the Captain of the Bruins or not. Okay?”

Zero nodded, swallowing thickly. Jude helped him stand up and hugged him tightly.

“Couch or bed?” his boyfriend asked after pressing a kiss to his neck.

Zero parted a little from him. “Bed. But you can go back if you want.”

Jude gave him a small smile. “I think it’s already wrapped up.”

Zero mumbled an apology and Jude simply planted a kiss on his cheek, smiling widely at the lipstick mark he still had from earlier. “I don’t know how Kyle can wear something like that on a daily basis,” he observed. “Come on, I’ll help you get rid of it. It might be a two-man job.”

They were just about to go to the bathroom — or rather, Jude was about to drag him out of the kitchen — when a bunch of loud noises echoed from somewhere outside of the flat, getting closer and closer until the front door swung open with Raquel and Derek, who were looking visibly panicked.

“ _Guys_ ,” Raquel breathed out.

“T’s going nuts in the press room,” Derek blurted, and Jude barely had time to let out a ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ before Raquel turned on the TV, the large flat screen showing a visibly annoyed Terrence on a blue field.

“... _problem with Zero is that everybody feels entitled to look down at him because people like you go on making money and a name on a kid of 20 who’s got enough balls to stand up for himself. The problem is that his_ teammates _feel entitled to look down at him because of more than sixty years of the League not dealing with queer athletes. It’s because all you people address his sexuality as an issue, as an anomaly, rather than just seeing that we’re talking about one of the most skilled players I’ve ever met. Someone who’s tough, and determined and hard-working, a thousand times more than anybody wants to give him credit for. If according-”_

“They broke Terrence,” Jude observed, astonished.

Zero took a step back, another one, and another. He didn’t know how he found enough strength to scramble his way to the bathroom, before his stomach gave out and he started throwing up in the toilet bowl.


	24. Chapter 24

Objectively, now that Jude was watching the replay of the press conference in its entirety, things made a lot more sense than what he had thought when Raquel and Derek barged in the night before, starting with the fact that Terrence had not exactly _gone nuts_ all of a sudden. The Blue Devils, he had learned since then, had suffered a great deal while fighting against North Carolina, eventually losing 58 to 62 and their place in Finals. Competitive as the Walls were, Jude could only guess that having lost to his baby brother Clarence had probably not been far behind in Terrence’s mind when he had left the Court with his Team, and headed for the press room. But Terrence was a natural leader. He was a big brother in many ways, he rarely lost his temper over minor matters, and after years of being monitored by his father, was perfectly capable of handling his nerves in a press room.

Except that Jude had learned one thing this year, and he had learned it the hard way: March Madness was a hell of a mess to go through. Making it to the Final Four was another layer of pressure.  Losing there certainly needed more than a ten-minute cool-off period before being able to smile and politely answer questions by reporters who basically asked you ‘what did you do to screw up this bad’. It had started innocently, with a reporter asking if UCLA being out of the way had cleared a straight path to the Final Four for them, as it had for Duke and, to some extent, North Carolina. To his credit, Terrence replied graciously for the first five minutes. Then when somebody brought up the rumors about the commotion in the Bruins’ locker room, linking them with Zero’s very public ‘coming-out’, and asked how the Blue Devils themselves had copped with rumors about homosexuality in the past, an annoyed frown had started to appear on Terrence’s face. Basically, that was when the words ‘ _But you have history with Zero-_ ’ caused Wall to snap and well, more or less told everyone to go fuck themselves.

“You’re still watching this?” Zero mumbled when he padded into the kitchen, with puffy eyes and hair sticking up in every direction. It had grown quite a bit longer than Jude had ever seen it, but it didn’t look bad — just wild and untamed, like Zero.

Jude closed his laptop and set it off to the side on the countertop, while Zero was retrieving a cereal box out of the cupboard. Jude was making a point not to comment on the fact that he was making visible efforts to actually get food into his system on a regular basis — he was supposed to get appointments with a specialized clinic if his weight wasn’t improving by the end of the month.

“Derek and Raquel kind of exaggerated. I think things will be just fine,” he said with a casual shrug as he stood up and joined Zero on the other side of the hardwood surface.

Zero started munching on his cereal, leaning against the kitchen stove, while Jude poured himself his second cup of coffee of the morning.

“I feel awful. If that plays against Terrence, Daddy Wall will murder me.”

Jude snorted and sipped his coffee. “No one will murder you for things you have no control over.”

“He used the word ‘fag’,” Zero said, gloomy. “On live TV.”

“Not in an _inappropriate_ way.”

“I doubt people think there are ‘appropriate’ ways to use it.”

He gave Zero a pointed look. “He said he supported you and _if_ that made him a fag to stand up for you then he was fine with it. This was clearly not meant to be offensive.” He took one last sip from his coffee and stepped back, looking up at the clock above the fridge. “I told Lionel I’d drop by. Do you need a ride?”

To his therapist, that was, but Jude was secretly afraid that bringing it up out-loud would make Zero trash it all away, given how reluctant he was in the first place.

“Nah, I’ll go later,” Zero replied, begrudgingly biting at his spoon.

Jude was sure it was wishful thinking, Zero couldn’t possibly be _fine_ in so little time after having been broken down on so many levels and for so many years, but he found that his boyfriend looked a little less dejected than the past week, and that gave him a smile. He stepped into Zero’s personal space after putting his empty mug in the sink.

“I missed having you around,” Jude whispered fondly, pressing a long kiss on his cheek, his skin still striped with pinkish marks from his pillowcase.

Zero studied him for a second, their faces almost touching. “Do we have to go out? I mean, Lionel can wait a little, right?”

“Lionel could,” Jude said slowly.

_But not your therapist_. Admittedly, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Jude could even call the therapist to tell him that Zero didn’t feel like going out, if he truly was a professional, he surely knew better than Jude how depression worked. They would spend the day together, like they had spent last night, and the night before that, just the two of them barely talking, with Zero nestled in his arms — and Jude stupidly acting like he could protect him from the world, when he wasn’t even doing a decent job of protecting him from his own demons. They could do all of that…

But that would be one more day. One more day before Zero gets better. One more day before he could finally put all of this behind him and move on. One more day before everything can come back to normal. Jude knew it would take time. But he didn’t want it to be his fault — and he knew he would just blame himself for that _one more day_.

“But she won’t. You know her,” Jude said, trying to force a casual smile on his lips.

Zero hummed.

“I love you,” Jude said gently, cupping his face with both of his hands, before giving him a kiss. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

*

“So, Zero, it’s been a week and a half now since our first appointment,” Dr. Ridgley said as he neatly rearranged some papers on his desk. “How about we start talking a little about you, huh?”

Zero lifted an eyebrow, unimpressed. “I already did. For a week,” he replied, but his voice lacked his usual insolence. He had talked about his problems with food, his problems with the Team, about the fact that one of his guys decided that the middle of the Sweet Sixteen had been the right moment to rearrange his face.

He had _talked_.

The man considered him thoughtfully. “You talked about Zero, the star-player of the Team.” Zero didn’t have the strength to snort. “But you said nothing about _you_ , really. The fact that I’ve been approved as a professional therapist by the NCAA doesn’t mean I’m limited to athletics only; particularly if they aren’t the problem.”

Zero let his eyes fall on his knees, sinking a little deeper into the chair across from the desk. So far he hadn’t seen anything they showed in the movies. There wasn’t a couch, or a sofa, or whatever that was called, just two large chairs covered in black leather, comfortable but too massive for Zero’s taste. Dr. Ridgley was a man in his forties who he instantly disliked; he looked far too self-absorbed to look like a real therapist. Zero had no experience in therapy, but he felt like everything people said was just a big fat lie. Talking to someone you didn’t know shit about wasn’t nice or comforting. Half of the time he wanted to go home and the other half he couldn’t wait for it to be over. 

“What makes you think there are other things to talk about?” he huffed, without really looking up.

There was a pause. “I had a friend in college,” Dr. Ridgley said (and six months ago, Zero would have found it hilarious that his _therapist_ was the one recounting his life). “His name was Armageddon. Every time he would introduce himself, he’d start off with a comment about his parents’ deplorable taste in children’s names.” He leaned back in his chair behind his desk. “Do you see where I’m going?”

_No because I’m fucking stupid._

Zero didn’t say anything, but that didn’t stop the man from going on. “You’re the only person I know who isn’t complaining about having such a singular name. And I’m sorry, but I rarely ever heard a name half as unusual as yours. So I think there is a story behind it, and I think this is at least one more layer that needs to be added to the star-Captain.”

“I’m an openly bisexual Team Captain sharing my life with a guy. I think there are quite a few other layers you’ve forgotten about.”

“What’s his name?” Dr. Ridgley asked conversationally.

Zero pressed his lips together. “Jude,” he said after a moment.

“Alright, and what is he like?”

Zero stared at him, slightly confused. “You want me to talk about my boyfriend?”

The therapist shrugged. “Better than nothing.”

Zero’s eyebrow twitched a little. “He’s an economics undergrad. He’s been my boyfriend since high school. He’s hot.”

Dr. Ridgley hummed in response before firing another question. It was always like that, but Zero was assuming that it was also because he wasn’t the most cooperative patient in the world. “What do you like about him?”

Zero rubbed an invisible spot on his jeans, just above his knee. “Dunno. Everything.” When he eventually looked up, it was to the man staring at him, and after a few agonizing seconds of silence, Zero consented to elaborate. “I just like having him around. He makes me feel calm.”

“Like? Doesn’t that seem like a little bit of an understatement for someone you’ve been dating for at least four years?”

“I’m not an over-sharer,” Zero countered. His eyelids felt heavy and he just wanted to be in his bed and sleep the rest of the day.

Dr. Ridgley straightened his position after they fell silent for what felt like _hours_ , and he wrote down some things on a sheet of paper. Zero knew it was a sign he was about to get dismissed, and he couldn’t wait to get home.

Get home and take a long, deep breath.

But there was something bubbling in his chest all of a sudden. It was slowly building up underneath that everlasting thin layer of anxiety. _Guilt_. He felt guilty. Guilty because Jude was the only thing that was going right in his life, and his entire being was dismissed as a simple, vague infatuation. They had gone through so much shit-

“He’s everything I’m not,” Zero said, quietly, staring at nothing. The faint scraping of the pen on the paper sheet stopped. “He’s smart and caring and sensitive. He thinks things through, he thinks about consequences and even still he doesn’t mind putting himself at risk. He’s- he’s mature. If you saw him- Honestly if you saw him you’d never believe we’ve got anything to do with each other. He’s… He’s so much better than me.”

“What makes you think that I would think so?” Dr. Ridgley asked.

Zero exhaled a breath and straightened in his chair as well, running a hand through his hair. “How about you just stop firing around blindly and get right to the real stuff instead of making everyone waste their time?”

Dr. Ridgley tilted his head, resting his temple on his knuckles. He studied him pensively. “I think there is a story about your name, and since you didn’t pick up on either of the two common answers people usually give when I ask them about their name, I think it involves your parents.”

“And what are the two answers?”

“Most commonly, either that their parents have incredibly bad taste or that they don’t mind their name that much,” the therapist replied.

“Maybe I don’t mind it that much.”

Dr. Ridgley seemed slightly amused. “Then why put a ‘maybe’ in front of that?”

Zero averted his eyes and lightly kicked the carpet under his foot. “I don’t mind it much.”

He rubbed his arm self-consciously, then Dr. Ridgley huffed a “Right”, and the scrapping of his pen started all over again. When he told him they’d be seeing each other in two days, Zero didn’t reply anything and just strode out of the office as fast as he could possibly go.

*

Up until now, Zero had never suffered from anxiety.

Or at least, anxiety related to school and other people there.

The key-phrase being _up until now_.

As he was walking through the hallways, he could feel the looks, he could see them talk and he could see them _stop talking_. All his life they had been staring. They had been staring at him when he was small because he was the weird scrawny kid with his much too big mouth, they had been staring at him when he got tall and hot because _he was tall and hot,_  and ever since he hadn’t minded them staring, because it was always with envy. Yet now God knew why they were staring. God knew what they were saying, _thinking_. Probably that he was just a fraud in the end. That he was a fucking coward. That if UCLA had been cast aside it was because he was too lame as a Captain, too lame as a player to even go through _one_ Championship and stand fucking still.

The other students’ glares felt like an itch over his skin; and for the first time in years, Zero just dropped his gaze in public. He just didn’t _want_ to look at them, and in an attempt to distance himself a little bit more, pushed the sound of his music a little higher after adjusting his headphones and shoving his hands into his pockets. It was still fairly early when he got into the classroom and settled in the far corner of one of the last rows, flicking through his phone. After fifteen minutes of the classroom gradually filling itself with his classmates, he gave up on trying to go through his Twitter feed when he realized he had been reading the same post over and over again without actually understanding a word of it. Setting his phone aside was probably a mistake, as Zero quickly realized, when he started to feel the weight of his classmates’ stares at him.

_Breathe. It’s not that big of a deal_ … He could almost hear Jude say, reassuring and soothing, but the voice wasn’t loud enough to cover the thrumming of his heart in his chest as the minutes went on. The babbling of the students around him was too loud and there were too many conversations going on for his brain to process it. Worse, the volume seemed to get higher and higher as the minutes went on, and the blood in his brain was beating mercilessly against his ear-drums, pounding louder and louder-

Zero stood up nervously, snatched his bag off his desk and strode all the way to the door still hanging wide open, bumping into his teacher in the process.

“Mr. Waselewski?” the man asked, confused, but Zero didn’t even look back, mumbling a vague ‘sorry’ under his breath, before practically running out of the building.

He walked for a good ten minutes, his hand still clutching at his bag, and he didn’t have any real idea where he was headed until he found himself walking through the familiar hallways of the Pauley Pavilion. Everything felt strangely quiet in the empty Arena, now that the season was over. It looked vaguely like an abandoned ship after a storm. Zero’s pace slowed down without him really noticing, and he eventually padded into the empty locker room, dropping his bag with a soft thud in his cubby. He hesitated a second or two before kicking his shoes off. He stripped and grabbed a shirt and a pair of shorts that had been hanging in his locker for a while, before he headed for the training room. He needed to do something.

_Anything_.

He just needed to stop thinking and he just needed to be alone.

Zero had no idea how long he spent lifting weights, how he even _managed_ to lift weights when every blink of his eyes felt like a herculean effort. His brain was filled with AC/DC’s very fitting _Back in Business_ , the providential pick of his phone’s shuffle mode he had on repeat — because honestly, that was quite a mood. That was, until someone ripped off his headphones, causing him to startle violently and the barbell to escape from his grip.

“What the hell do you think you’re _doing_?” Zero sputtered, breathless, as Nando lifted the barbell to put it back on its place at the station.

“I could ask you the same thing, idiot!” Nando bit back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Weights? No assistant? No _wraps_? Do you seriously want Alford to kill you?”

There was a second of silence, then Zero looked away, running his hand through his hair, damp with sweat; resting his elbows on his lap. In all fairness, he had forgotten about the safety rules. He had just gone for it.

“What are you even doing here?” he breathed out.

“I came back to empty my locker. Most of the guys already did,” Nando replied, pointing at the doors of the small compartments in the cubbies hanging open. “Zero, c’mon. We’ve been worried sick about you! We haven’t heard from you since-”

“Since I screwed up the Sweet Sixteen, yeah, I know.”

Nando sat down on the bench of the station standing close by. “Since Ryder punched you,” he corrected calmly. “We were totally freaking out. I know you don’t believe me because they’ve been assholes to you lately, but… honestly we were totally freaking out. You just knocked your head and you weren’t waking up, and then they shoved us out, it was- it was a real mess. It really was.”

Zero didn’t say anything; so far he hadn’t wanted to think about any of them. It just kept bringing out the worst in every thought. _It just made everything hurt more_. Nando shook his head to himself.

“We were mad at Alford, y’know?” Nando said again. “For the way he handled it. None of us were ready to go back on Court, he should have- he should have known that we weren’t. But he just shoved us out there and told us to move our ass. It was surreal.”

Zero’s eyes fell onto his headphones still laying on the ground, and he mustered enough courage to stand and pick them up. “I’m sorry for your last Championship,” he said after a while.

“How are things going for you?” Nando asked tentatively, standing up.

Zero raised a questioning eyebrow.

His teammate cleared his throat. “It’s just that- we were told that you were good for the most part, but then you were, like, on sick leave or something for, like, almost two weeks,” he mumbled awkwardly.

Zero felt his insides twisting. _You don’t need to tell people you’re fine if you aren’t_. That was probably the only useful piece of advice he had gotten from his therapist so far. _You don’t have to tell them anything you don’t want to. Everything you say — it’s up to you, because at the end of the day you’re the only one who feels the way you feel._

“I’m just damaged goods,” Zero whispered.

 


	25. Chapter 25

“The goddamn universe has got to be kidding me,” Nando hissed in plain frustration as he unsuccessfully tried to turn on his car for the third time.

Zero looked around the passenger compartment, letting his gaze wander on the old and somewhat reassuring curves of his teammate’s car. It was an old lady, those vintage, fancy models Zero always had a soft spot for while growing up — a peach-black Mercury Cougar 1968, probably around the cost of one of Zero’s kidneys on the Dark Web. He was envious by nature, but this time it barely got more than a twitch of an eyebrow. The fact that he wasn’t blaming the entire universe, because apparently more or less _everything_ in his life was fucked up these days, was just the proof of how tragically _blasé_ this whole depression-thing was making him feel.

Nando bitterly grumbled something about calling someone and got out of the car with his phone. How had he ended up here? Easy, _honesty_. As soon as Zero said he was counting on waiting for Jude to be done with his classes to come home, they had shared a ride in the morning anyway, Nando had decided that he ‘wouldn’t let him trash himself in the training room’ and to drop him off on his way home. It would have been cool, in a way, if it hadn’t turned out to be another waste of energy. After ten minutes of seeing Nando working himself up and angrily gesturing at someone who couldn’t even see him, he shook his head in disbelief, opened the door and climbed out of the car.

“Hey, you got a death wish? Don’t touch that!” Nando protested, taking his phone away just enough to glare down at Zero, who after walking to the front of the car, was now running his hand up the middle of the undercarriage, right under the grill.

“You’ve known me for three years,” Zero replied sternly, pulling the hood latch forward when his fingers met the small lever, “how often have you seen me taking care of somebody else’s shit just for fun?”

Nando stared at him after hanging up, taken aback. “Wait, you know what to do with that?”

Zero shrugged and lifted up the hood as high as possible. “Dunno, kind of. Still worth it to take a look.”

Though he had never actually worked on one of these — even the old Mustang that came in once had been fixed by Doc Hudson, he had just tested it — so now he was hoping not to embarrass himself. He leaned over and tried to remember everything he had seen and learned in the past.

“I can’t believe it, it just got out of the garage a week ago!” Nando pestered, pacing back and forth.

“What did they do exactly? ‘Cause they certainly didn’t check under the hood,” he mumbled.

Nando, who was still rambling to himself, stopped walking. “Uh, they fixed the power steering.”

Zero hummed to himself. “Makes sense. I worked on a Mustang once. Almost killed myself while trying it. The power steering felt like butter.”

There was silence that Zero only noticed after a minute or two of Nando saying nothing. He looked up over his shoulder. “What?”

Nando shrugged. “Nothing. I just didn’t picture you as… Well, someone who would go for greasy stuff I guess.”

“I spent years in a garage. Nights, weekends. You learn quite a bit.” There was like a small, tiny sparkle that fluttered in his chest when Zero’s eyes stumbled over the old capacitor and there was almost the shadow of a smile on his lips — but everything was gone in a blink of an eye, and it felt dull all over again.

“Oh. Parent thing?”

“You gotta have parents for that,” Zero groaned, eyes fixated on the engine. “Look, the good news is that it’s not that big of a deal. My guess is there’s just something wrong with the capacitor. Can’t really tell without a voltage meter but that wouldn’t be a surprise with an old Ford like this one anyway. Maybe change the points too. If the guy charges you more than 35$, maybe 40, for the capacitor and 25$ for the points, he’s screwing you over,” he said matter-of-factly, reaching for the hood and carefully closing it back down.

“There’s not a single thing in all that had happened in the last hour or so with you that I _don’t_ find remotely weird and out of character,” Nando observed dryly, then gestured at Zero with his chin. “I saw your mom and dad. What’s the matter with them? They looked fine to me.”

Zero hated himself. He had always known how to keep his goddamn mouth shut. Why was it any different now? Because he had a _therapist_? Oh _please_. “They are,” Zero said neutrally. “Samuel isn’t my father though. And Allie… Allie’s been my mom from 0 to 5 and then 17 to now. So… Yeah, that leaves quite a few years in-between.”

Nando cocked an eyebrow. “Oh. Did you, like, live with your dad or something?”

Zero stared at nothing. “Foster care. Trashy people, shitty childhood. I just spent my days in a garage nearby not to have to deal with them.”

“The shitty childhood,” Nando said after a while. “Does it have anything to do with you breaking down after Alex beat you up?”

Zero didn’t say anything at first. “Yeah. Yeah it does. When you spend ten years getting your ass beaten for no reason, there are things that tend to _trigger_ you later on.” After a two-minute silence, he eventually huffed a painful snort, shaking his head. “I don’t even- I don’t even _know_ why I’m talking about this shit. I don’t even talk about it with that fucking therapist they force me to see!”

Nando stared at his phone screen. “Well maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you should just open up and let it out of your system. There are no ‘150 ways to get better if you’re down’.”

Zero shoved his hands in his pockets. “All that shit…,” he paused and gave small rock near his foot a quick kick. “Everything happened because people got their noses into my mom’s business. And mine, for that matter. I’m not sharing because sharing just brings up even more shit.”

He rounded the car before Nando could say anything useless, like ‘I’m sorry’ or any other shitty stuff like that, opened the passenger side door and picked up his bag. “Anyway, thanks for the ride, but I’ll wait for Jude.”

*

It was a typical evening as they had gotten to be for some time now, quiet and tranquil.

Zero was already fast asleep when Jude joined him in the bed; and Jude, creepy boyfriend as he had grown to become apparently, didn’t resist the need to watch him some more. There was something impossibly soft in his boyfriend’s face when he was sleeping, like he was his actual age all over again, and not some big bad baller trying to conquer the world. Jude settled in bed, resting his head on his folded arm, but after only a moment, Zero’s eyes fluttered open. They gazed at each other in silence. Jude gave him a soft smile, and brushed at Zero’s cheek.

“Goodnight,” Jude whispered, and he leaned forward to press a chaste kiss onto his lips.

He was already pulling back when Zero’s hand cupped his neck, drawing him back into another kiss, then two. The third one was a little longer; the fourth had Jude gently leaning back onto the mattress while Zero hovered over him. Jude knew he should keep his hopes low, but he couldn’t help the way his heartbeat picked up, let alone how his breathing caught in his throat at how Zero looked at him from above. He didn’t realize he was gaping until Zero kissed him again and his boyfriend’s tongue found no resistance when it licked into his mouth. Jude let out a soft, breathy moan when Zero threw his leg over him and when they broke the kiss, Jude’s hands fell to Zero’s sides, gently circling his waist.

It was the farthest they had gone since Zero’s meltdown. Jude tried to memorize everything, every little touch and kiss, as if maybe it was supposed to stop now.

But it wasn’t stopping.

Zero leaned more of his weight on him, caging Jude’s head with his elbows, and he could distinctly feel the pressure of his semi hard-on brushing against his thigh. _Oh_. That was new. Jude’s hands tentatively wandered over his back, settling low. His fingers slid under the hem of his shirt, and a small sigh escaped from Zero’s lips when they came in contact with his sleep-warm skin, getting more and more confident until Zero’s shirt was almost pulled up to his shoulders.

They kissed and kissed until they were light-headed, and when Zero pulled back, straddling him, Jude felt his heart twist a little.

_Game over_ , he thought in resignation, as gravity did a good job of pulling Zero’s shirt back in place. Just as he expected him to climb off of him, his boyfriend reached for his shirt, and under Jude’s half-surprised, half-hungry eyes, pulled it over his head before discarding it off to the side.

“Zero,” Jude said in a murmur when Zero leaned down again.

“I got this,” he decided; there was a concentrated look on his face that made Jude worry. He wanted him to know that he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t _want_ to do; but then, the kiss he gave him was so soft and gentle that every bit of concern melted away for a little while.

His tank-top knew the same fate as Zero’s shirt, as did their boxers. When his naked skin came in contact with Zero’s? _Heaven_. He had no idea he could settle for so little but here he was, apparently. He was so hard he couldn’t even deny he wanted it, even though part of his mind, which was turning foggier and foggier, was screaming that maybe they should keep it slow. They were grinding and writhing against each other, like when they were 17 and furiously making out — and Jude felt like he didn’t remember exactly how good sex felt, because right now letting his hands roam all over Zero was almost enough. _Almost._

Zero was halfway through preparing him when Jude’s mind snapped back into place. _He’s okay_. _He’s fine. Everything is fine_ , he told himself, but the room was filled with _his_ moans, and with _his_ hard breaths, and with _his_ pleasure. Zero was all focused and silent, like he was a virgin all over again trying not to make a mess.

“Z-Zero,” Jude breathed out, searching for his eyes as he cupped his face.

Zero’s fingers stilled inside of him and Jude tried to hold back a shiver of expectation. Zero’s electric blue eyes were dark with lust in the dimly lit room and Jude almost forgot it all. _Almost_.

He brought Zero’s face to his and they kissed open-mouthed while Zero started his ministrations back up again. It was slow and careful and cautious, even when Zero eventually lined up and pressed his cock inside of him. Jude was growing soft but he didn’t care anymore. His body had been aching for an orgasm for weeks now, but it all felt useless at this point. He didn’t want sex. He wanted Zero.

His boyfriend muffled his face in the crook of Jude’s neck as he bottomed out, and they remained silent and still for a moment, their chest heaving hard against each other. Zero straightened up a little and started thrusting, eliciting soft and breathy moans from Jude. It wasn’t the best sex they had ever had, but it was soft and reassuring, like falling back into a familiar place. Jude’s fingers tangled into Zero’s hair, his arm clinging onto his shoulders.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Jude breathed with a raspy voice, his lips ghosting over the shell of Zero’s ear. He didn’t know if it had any connection to what he had just said, but suddenly Zero’s thrusts sped up and hit that right spot inside of him. Jude’s head was thrown back against the pillow, his eyes fluttering shut and a loud moan escaping from his parted lips.

_Scratch everything_. It all was set on high-speed as Zero assaulted his prostate over and over again, drawing him closer and closer to the edge, fast, _too_ _fast_. Jude’s mind went blurry and fuzzy from pleasure building up in what felt like record time. Zero’s hands were gripping at Jude’s hips in a nearly bruising manner as his own hips snapped up in a new-found pace that Jude was definitely _not_ ready for.

He had been thinking too much- _fuck it always happened like_ \- that’s how Zero knew-

Suddenly Jude’s cock reminded him it was there, painfully twitching between their pressed bodies, and with a whimper he came, untouched and quivering. His control slipped as he was thrown over the edge, painting their chests white, and Zero followed close, his trembling limbs giving out. Their hard breaths echoed in the silent room.

Jude couldn’t care less about cleaning himself — he wanted to stay like that forever, with Zero panting in his arms, his burning body plastered all over his, his hair damp and messy, tickling in his neck.

“I love you,” Jude whispered, breathless, as he pressed a kiss onto Zero’s temple. “I love you so much.”

Zero slowly took his face off his neck, and brushed his nose against Jude’s. “You’re it,” he finally said, barely audible.

Jude frowned a little confused. “It what?”

“Everything,” Zero whispered as he tucked his face back into Jude’s neck. “You’re everything to me.”

It was soft but it wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t cute, it wasn’t adorable; it wasn’t sappy.

It was broken. It was painful.

And it wasn’t okay.

*

It was a Thursday; strangely enough Jude would always remember that.

He was just heading out of their building to climb into his car and head off to Campus, already fifteen minutes late for his daily schedule — where had those minutes gone, he had no idea —, when he was stopped right in his tracks by someone calling out his name. A black Mercedes was parked along the sidewalk, to the left of the main entrance, and it took him a second to put a name to the face who was looking at him from behind the steering-wheel.

“Oh, hey Samuel,” Jude greeted him through the passenger’s door. “Looking for Zero? He’s still sleeping.”

“That’s what I thought,” Samuel nodded. “Look, can we chat a little? I’m sorry, I know you’ve got classes-”

“Sure! No problem,” Jude cut him off, earnest, all thoughts of being late having disappeared for good as soon as he registered Samuel’s presence at the base of the building. “Is everything okay?”

Samuel seemed to hesitate just a second, then told him to climb in. The road to the nearest Starbucks was short, barely a minute, and mostly silent. But Jude wasn’t that worried because Samuel and Allie had regularly hit him up in the past few weeks to get updates on Zero’s health; so it wasn’t much different in the end, right? Except that Samuel looked mildly preoccupied when they sat behind their drinks, and that definitely did a good job of making Jude freak out. Last time he had seen the Hipwells, the Sunday before, everything seemed to be fine.

“Listen, I don’t know how _not_ to make it sound worrying,” Samuel started off, and Jude’s mind immediately braced himself for alarm mode. “Zero came to talk to me the other day. He asked me about the Delucas.”

“The Delucas?” Jude repeated faintly. _Leo and Carla_. He straightened in the booth, frowning. “What did he ask exactly?”

Samuel cleared his throat. “He asked about the restraining order... How exactly that worked for him. If they were still living in the same house, things like that.”

Jude raised his eyebrows in stupefaction. That didn’t make any kind of sense. Zero had never brought up his foster parents in three years, let alone talking about going anywhere near the house or… them as a whole, really. As far as he was concerned he hadn’t even mentioned any of his foster siblings.

“What did you tell him?” Jude enquired nervously, his hands clutching around his Styrofoam cup.

Samuel pressed his lips together and leaned back against the backrest of the booth. “I told him the truth. It’s not like it’d have been wise to lie, you know? I told him that civil orders are not automatically reciprocal. The defendant is required to stay away from the victim, but there’s no automatic requirement that the victim stay away from the defendant. Nothing can stop Zero from knocking on the Delucas’ door anytime soon if he wants to.”

Jude felt his throat growing tighter and his eyes wider. “B-But why would he do that? They’ve beaten him for years, they almost _killed_ _him_!”

Samuel looked at him apologetically. “I know all of that well enough, Jude. Did he ever mention anything about it?”

“No! Never,” Jude exclaimed, a little bit too loud judging by the look of the young barista. She probably wasn’t used to seeing people that worked up so early in the morning. “I don’t even understand why he would do that,” he said again, quieter.

“I may be wrong, hopefully I am, but perhaps it might have something to do with his therapist,” Samuel confessed, and Jude gave him a puzzled look. “Zero’s had appointments for a month now. They surely got to the point of the… deeper memories by this time.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Jude mumbled. “We don’t talk about it. I kinda avoid doing so. I just don’t want to look like I’m pushing. I’ve been trying to have him see a therapist for almost as long as I’ve known him, so…”

Samuel let out a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. “The everlasting struggle,” he muttered, though it sounded like he was talking to himself rather than to Jude. The man eventually glanced up. “Look, it’s not easy to balance everything when you’re in a situation like this. Dating someone who’s going through depression, it’s not easy. It never is. When I met Allie… Honestly she was in a terrible place, emotionally speaking. It took her years before she finally was able to lead a normal life again.”

Jude’s eyes dropped to his cup of coffee and he felt a disagreeable weight on his chest, like there was something so heavy that he could barely breathe. _Years_. What if Zero was depressed for years? What if he was depressed forever? What if he never felt like he used to _ever again_?

“Jude,” Samuel called out, and his eyes snapped up. “It’s going to be fine, I’m sure. I didn’t mean to make you freak out, I’m sorry. I just want you to know that… That thing you’re going through, I know what it feels like. And it’s okay if sometimes you’re tired of being careful, and it’s okay if sometimes you’re done with being nice and with walking on eggshells.”

Was that so obvious? Did Zero notice it too, and that’s why he maybe was now keeping things to himself all over again? _Please_ _no_. He couldn’t bear the idea of Zero hurting in silence. He had kept quiet for far too long just because he didn’t want to upset his boyfriend, but now Zero had a therapist, and things were supposed to be fine again eventually. So why did all of this, the fact that Zero wanted to find out more about his restraining order, the fact that he kept things to himself, why did all of _this_ sound like it wasn’t okay and that it’d never be okay?

“What if he really wants to meet them again?” Jude asked quietly, voice shuddering a little. “I can’t just accept that blindly and to hell with the consequences, even if that’s something he’d want!”

They weren’t good people. _They weren’t good people for him_.

Samuel gave it a thought. “I don’t know. I just keep telling myself that he could have found the answers he was looking for — well at least for the restraining order — online. He didn’t _have_ to come to me and to talk to me. I can’t help but think that maybe… Yeah, maybe he didn’t want it to be a secret. Maybe he was just subconsciously asking for help because he doesn’t know how to make that decision on his own.”

“What if he didn’t want me to know?” Jude said as he kept looking every now and then at his cooling cup of coffee, like the answers would suddenly appear in the film forming on the surface of the liquid.

“Sometimes you can’t always do what they want in order to protect someone you love. I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to reconnect with them, or to have anything to do with them in general, especially not now,” Samuel observed as he checked on his watch. He finished his coffee and stood up, straightening his suit jacket. “If his therapist is reopening this part of his past, he should be more careful. Therapists might be specialists but they don’t know the secrets of the universe and they are only human. Sometimes they make mistakes. On the other hand, maybe I’m just terribly wrong. Maybe I hastily jumped to conclusions. Just keep an eye open, okay? You know, just in case,” Samuel concluded with a smile he probably hoped to be reassuring.

Jude nodded and mumbled a ‘goodbye’ when his stepfather-in-law left the booth and headed out quickly, not to be too late for work. Admittedly, Jude should have done the same. But he couldn’t care less about his classes right now. Everything Samuel had told him was swirling around in his head, making the world spin a little as he stared down at his now cold coffee.

_You’re everything to me_.

Zero’s whisper was engraved in his brain, even three days later. He tried to think about other stuff, weird stuff. Surely there had been none as weird and alarming as Zero asking Samuel upfront about the Delucas. But… now that he was thinking back to the couple of times Zero had acted a little odd those past few days and weeks, he couldn’t help but think that Samuel was _so_ _terribly_ _fucking right._ There _was_ something weird with his boyfriend. And he hadn’t noticed, because everything felt like goddam improvement when in the end it really wasn’t.

Once, Jude was absent-mindedly brushing his teeth, barely managing not to spill toothpaste all over himself, when he had found Zero staring at him from the bedroom. His expression was dull and unreadable, like most times these days, and Jude had tried not to blush a deep red at the sight.

“What?” he had barely managed to articulate, toothpaste dripping down his chin in what was probably the _least_ sexy manner.

He was tugging at the towel hanging low around his hips, when Zero had blinked a couple of times, as if he hadn’t realized yet he had been caught staring. His boyfriend cleared his throat before looking somewhere else. _Blushing_. “Nothing. I- I just think you’re beautiful.”

_Oh_. It was only thanks to muscle memory that Jude managed to bend over the sink in time to spit out his toothpaste, before chucking the tap open to rinse his mouth. Once he had managed to avoid making a complete mess — and a fool of himself —, he had joined a fidgety Zero in their bedroom. His boyfriend seemed to be avoiding his eyes, but Jude had just held out his hand.

“Okay, since we’re both 16-year-old virgins all over again, let’s make it proper. Hi, name’s Jude. What’s yours, gorgeous?”

That was the worst pick-up line ever but it wasn’t like Jude was any good at hitting on someone. Zero had glanced up at him with a puzzled expression, like he had definitely gone crazy, and for a solid second, Jude thought he had screwed up really, really bad. But then Zero had snorted, and he had even started smiling a little. Zero had shaken his hand, and they had remained like that for a moment, until Jude drew Zero closer.

“I love you,” Jude had said, pressing a kiss on the back of Zero’s hand.

“Love you too,” Zero had responded and Jude couldn’t help the smile that took over his stupid face.

They had dropped hands and he wrapped his arms around his shoulders, imperceptibly shivering when Zero’s hands had fallen to his sides and his thumbs brushed at the naked skin above the towel. Now, Jude was well-aware that he had been distracted by this simple, innocent gesture — his fingers brushing at his skin — because he had such low expectations when it came to… well, being touched, really. That had made him forget about the weirdness of the situation, even though there had been no actual follow-up after that (Zero had gone to take a shower and then they had slept). Zero didn’t mind praising Jude, but he always did it with a smirk and a tease. Thinking back, that felt really alien for his boyfriend.

But if it was the only weird thing… Because yeah, the weirdest of these moments remained in the shower, right?

It had happened around a week ago. He was in the shower, and absolutely convinced he was alone in the apartment because his boyfriend was supposed to be out. It probably explained why he had barely escaped a heart-attack when two arms had wrapped around his waist, taking him by surprise. Jude had scooted around in a bolt, only to see his boyfriend dripping wet from the spray mercilessly pouring on his clothes.

“ _Zero_ ,” Jude had breathed out, doing everything in his power to just _calm his fucking heartbeat._

He wasn’t shy, particularly not in front of Zero because, _well_ , teenage boyfriends and all, but he just hadn’t got it. Zero had made eye-contact for a second or two, then he had leaned forward, slowly pressing Jude into the tiled wall of the shower, fully stepping under the spray. Jude’s heart had jerked in his chest, and when Zero claimed his mouth, his arms had shot up instantly and wrapped themselves behind Zero’s neck, pressing Zero against himself. The water was turning a little cooler by the time they had parted for air, panting and dazed, and Jude had given him a small Eskimo kiss.

_Everything okay_? he could remember wanting to ask, but he had known it wasn’t the case, he had just known. But all he had found to say was “I love you”, and in the moment it seemed about right, because he was still involuntarily ignoring all those times Zero acted odd and all those times he was just weirdly clingy.

Now he didn’t know what was right and what wasn’t, except for one thing: if Zero wanted to have any business with the Delucas, it couldn’t have popped up in his mind out of the blue.

“Do you want something else?” a voice asked, making him startle violently. The young barista was smiling at him from behind her counter.

Jude shook his head. “N-no, thanks. I’ll just go,” he said, standing up.

It was still fairly early in the morning but he didn’t care.

He needed to talk to this goddam therapist.


	26. Chapter 26

Honestly, Zero hadn’t exactly expected to be _this_ pissed when he got back home. He blamed it entirely on the few moments he had spent with nothing to do but _think_ as the elevator climbed up to their floor, on the way back from his appointment with Dr. Ridgley. It had been narrowed down to twice a week by now, which should have been a good sign if only Zero’s condition was improving, something he found difficult to believe. Jude was sitting by the countertop when Zero stormed in, slamming the door shut behind him and drawing wide, hazel eyes in his direction.

“I can’t believe you went behind my back!” Zero blurted out as soon as he got in.

Jude’s expression melted from surprised to uncomfortable. “Babe, I-I can explain-”

“Don’t _babe_ me!” Zero exclaimed, livid, as he strode closer. “How could you fucking do that? You’ve been on my back for _years_ for me to see a goddamn shrink; and when I finally go to see one, you’ve got to pry in?!”

He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation — or maybe it was already a fight, he didn’t know.

“I didn’t do it just for the sake of it!” Jude protested, mildly offended. “Samuel told me you asked about the Delucas, can you understand that’s a little bit worrying to hear?!”

“I was dealing with it just fine, you- you didn’t have to step in!” Anger was brutally melting away, leaving him bitterly stuttering under his boyfriend’s regard. It was so stupid, so _fucking stupid_.

“Listen-,” Jude tried as he stood up from his stool, but Zero took a step back.

“I didn’t want you to fucking step in,” Zero exclaimed again. “He doesn’t like you! Up until this morning, he didn’t like the _idea_ of you, and now he’s seen you and he’s talked to you and it will all be fucking real now!”

“Oh yes; thanks by the way, he made it quite clear,” Jude growled, crossing his arms over his chest. “What are you upset about exactly? That I tried to protect you or that I found out that my boyfriend had sex with me just because he’s a little shit who doesn’t like to be told what he can and can’t do?”

Zero felt like he had just been slapped and it seemed that everything just crumbled a little more around him. “I- I didn’t-,” he tried, but nothing felt right and he didn’t even know how he could end this fucking sentence.

He didn’t mean it? Mean _what_? To go against his fucking therapist’s advice to rethink his relationship with Jude? To just take some time out of this relationship to build himself up as a grown-up? _He always finds a way to do it, right?_ Ridgley had told him just an hour ago. _He always finds a way to justify the fact that he goes against your wishes for the sake of empathy. How many times had he done it in the past? How many times did he try to control you?_

Jude hovered closer. “Zero, hey, Zero, please, calm down,” he said, voice instantly calmer, like he had registered what a fucking jerk he had decided to be that day. “Just take a deep breath, alright?”

Zero’s eyes almost bulged out of their sockets, but he realized his chest was heaving hard and there was a panicked look on Jude’s face. Maybe he was just scared he would fucking explode — and maybe he was just about to. Tentatively, Jude reached for his arm and drew him to the couch. It reminded him of something, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint what exactly, everything that wasn’t _now_ felt hazy and blurry. They both sat together on the couch and Jude’s hand automatically pressed his leg while Zero was still trying to regain a regular heartbeat. His other hand went to stroke his back, soothing him.

Zero buried his face in his hands, which turned out to be a convenient way to hide that they were shaking. “I didn’t want you to pry in,” he uttered, “I didn’t want- I didn’t want you to meet him…”

Then there was silence; only disturbed by the thrumming of his heart and the blood pounding in his ears. For a moment Jude’s hand stilled on his back. “I shouldn’t have made this about me,” he mumbled.

“It’s not that! He’s wrong- I know he’s fucking wrong. I fucking love you, you asshole!” he bit back bitterly. “And I didn’t want to tell you about it because I didn’t want you to stupidly doubt it; because I fucking know you and you will just start to doubt about me. You’ll think he got under my fucking skin and I didn’t- I’m fucking tired of that.  I’m fucking tired of everything because everything feels like it’s crashing and I just can’t feel like it’s all going down in flames one more _fucking day_!”

 _Why was he fucking angry_ ; why were there fucking _tears_ in his _fucking eyes_?!

Jude’s arm left his back and his hand slipped away from his leg, but he could still feel his warmth close by. “Hey,” Jude said softly, and when he pried his hands away from his face, Zero found him kneeling in front of him — probably the only goddamn way Jude could find to make eye-contact.

“C’mere.” He cupped Zero’s neck and forced him to lean forward until their foreheads were pressed against each other. “I’m sorry for that,” he said. “I’m sorry for yelling and for saying you were a little shit. It’s just that-” He paused and Zero opened his stupid eyes, still prickling with fucking tears, glancing down at Jude who was biting at his bottom lip. He brushed a blonde strand of his hair away from his face before adding: “You hadn’t yelled at me in ages. It felt like- It felt like everything was-”

 _Normal_. It felt like everything was normal. But it wasn’t. Jude huffed and shook his head a little, looking at him softly. “Zero, I can’t- I don’t know what his opinion is worth. I don’t know if he’s right about me; if he’s right about us. I love you more than anything in the world and I can’t… I can’t take the risk not to know if I _am_ part of what is destroying you. But neither can I pretend he’s wrong about me and still let you go there on a daily basis anyway.”

Zero’s heart sank even deeper in his chest, and he didn’t know how that was even possible. _He’s wrong_. _I know he’s wrong._ Jude was the only thing that was right. The only thing that was _true_. Jude was the only reason he hadn’t already given up on himself and slit his wrists open the night everything crashed. _Just because he couldn’t bear the idea of Jude hurting_. 

Zero swallowed thickly. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

Jude looked at him in silence for a moment. “We will find you another therapist. Alright? Screw the NCAA. Screw them all. We will find you someone better, the best of them all,” he said, forcing a small smile onto his lips. “But now you should really calm down. Breathe in, breathe out.”

Zero closed his eyes and tried to take a long inhale, then a long, deep exhale, so deep that his stomach went hollow. He almost stupidly choked himself on it and a small giggle escaped from Jude. After a while and a couple more long breaths, his heartbeat slowed down a bit and he was finally able to look at Jude without feeling like his brain was going to blow up.

“The sex was real,” he whispered, bashful. “I didn’t just do it because of whatever he said to me. I did it because- because I missed you.”

Jude nodded slowly and wrapped his arms around his waist, pulling himself close until his face was pressed against Zero’s chest. They remained like that for a while, with Jude literally kneeling between Zero’s legs, in an awkward position that would have probably led to very embarrassing suspicions if anyone was to enter this flat — who cared though?

“Zero?” Jude asked at some point with a voice muffled by the fabric of Zero’s shirt. “Did you really have to be that, like, 1% of the population who doesn’t get along with their therapist?”

Zero let out a small huff and attempted to lean back, but Jude chuckled and held him tighter. “Be grateful I haven’t already set his car on fire for suggesting anything close to ‘you should break up with him’.”

Jude sighed and looked up at him. “I am. Trust me, I am. But in any case, you’ll have to at least drop by to, you know, break it off with him.”

Zero grumbled to himself. The man deserved to be ghosted, but apparently that wasn’t something you did, according to Jude. Two days later, on the day of his actual appointment, Zero presented himself at the office and bluntly told him that he didn’t want to continue going there.

“We could still plan a session with your boyfriend, maybe that would help,” Dr. Ridgley suggested.

He wasn’t sure he could hold himself together while Ridgley would try to destroy Jude right in front of him, so he simply gave him a long, pointed stare. “Thanks, but no.”

He deemed that he had been more than lenient in dragging himself there in person while everything was already exhausting in the first place. And so after fifteen more minutes, Zero found himself walking out of the office, then the building; and when he climbed in his car, what he realized wasn’t very pleasant.

He was still feeling like shit. His energy was barely existent. He had developed a high level of social anxiety he didn’t know he could’ve possibly had someday. He had no therapist.

 _Back to the start_.

*

Jude stared begrudgingly at the restaurant menu in front of him, and Lionel gave him a small kick with her very pointy high heels under the table.

“Come on, Jude. Chin up!”

Jude glowered at her. “I’d very much appreciate it if next time you could just avoid _kidnapping me_.”

“How dramatic you make it sound.” Lionel shrugged and took a sip of her mineral water. “I just asked you to accompany me.”

“Yes, because I thought it was to some stupid fashion store ten minutes away. _Not out of town_. That is _strictly_ kidnapping,” he whisper-screamed, because he still had some decency and he rather wanted to avoid starting a fuss in the fancy restaurant Lionel had just dragged him into fifteen minutes ago.

“Stop being a smart ass for a second. Even Zero agrees that you need to go out and do things other than worry about him. He’s depressed, not dying,” Lionel reminded him.

Jude let his gaze drop back to the menu. “Not so long ago there wasn’t much difference.”

“Which isn’t the case anymore.” There was something almost determined in Lionel’s tone that left Jude to wonder if she ever dealt with a depressed person _ever_ in her life. “You have to see the bright side of it all. He has asked for help. He will receive the appropriate care he needs.”

“He did. Turns out he just ditched his therapist,” Jude sighed and Lionel looked surprised; her full, red-lips formed a small ‘o’ as she digested the information.

“Well, he _will_ get some better help. For someone who didn’t want to even go to therapy, I didn’t really expect him to be picky.”

Jude gave her a look and shook his head. “I guess the man should have avoided suggesting I was the source of Zero’s problems.”

Lionel frowned and there was an almost imperceptible blush that crept up her cheeks. “He did _what_? Who the hell does he think he is?” she sneered in indignation.

“A certified therapist. Or so they say.”

Lionel apparently contemplated whether she should keep her anger up or let it die down, and she seemed to choose the latter. “I’m sure there’s nothing more you can do for him at the moment. Certainly _not_ moping in your apartment,” Lionel eventually said.

Jude scoffed. “I’m not moping for God’s sake! I’m just trying to make it smooth for him because that’s what he’d do for me. That’s what anybody would do,” he mumbled as he started rereading the menu for the seventh time at least, without gathering much.

“I’m not criticizing the fact you want to help, honey, I’m just saying that it shouldn’t be at the cost of your own sanity.”

Jude shook his head. “Who’s dramatic now?”

Lionel made a sign to the waiter who immediately presented himself to take their orders. “I’m serious, Jude,” she said again once he had left. “Have you thought about seeing a therapist yourself as I suggested? It could be good for you.”

“Is there a discount for therapist appointments these days or what?” he joked, but that didn’t make his ex-stepmom laugh at all. “Lionel, I swear I’m fine. I may have been a little… _anxious_ after the Sweet Sixteen, but it’s fine now. My grades are fine; my relationship is as fine as it can be despite the circumstances. It’s all good.”

She hummed in response. “Will you hate me for bringing the subject of next summer on the table then?”

 _And here we are_. He was only partially surprised, though.

“Your dad said I still had plenty of time to think about it,” Jude pointed out.

“And you do, sweetheart. I just want you to… actually think about it, and not push it back and push it back until there’s, well, _no_ _time_ _left_ to think about it,” Lionel said, gesturing as she spoke.

Jude could have argued that it wasn’t his style, but ever since Zero had come into his life, well, it was kind of true for the most part.

“I still need to think about it.” So far his plans for next summer had been to keep them both alive, thank you very much.

“I know you’re thinking about Zero but…,” she sighed. “Zero isn’t your full-time job. You’re a student. You’re in college. You’re supposed to have some fun, do some stupid things, and occasionally think about your future. You’re 20, for the love of God. Have you any idea what I’d give to be 20 all over again?”

Jude stared at her. “At 20 you were dating a _baller_. I should hope if you ever found a way to be this young again you would keep your hands off mine!”

“That’s irrelevant. I’m not sharing, and last I heard (Jude blushed and looked down), you weren’t either. So let’s just keep this conversation on track, shall we?” Lionel leaned back against the comfortable cushion of her chair. “I may not be your mom, but I think this is a wonderful opportunity for you.”

 _You didn’t kill yourself when I was small so I guess you did a better job anyway_ , he thought, but talking about his dead mom to his very nice ex-stepmom would have made him definitely slip from edgy bitch to dumbass bastard.

“You weren’t so fond about the idea of me leaving last year, in case you don’t remember,” Jude observed. “What has changed?”

Lionel didn’t try to deflect. “Well, first it’s only one month, not three. And it’s in Paris.”

“But it’s in a financial PR company. That’s a far cry from anything related to being a financial lawyer.”

“No pain, no gain. Look, Jude. If everything goes right — and I don’t doubt it will —, it’s about the last year you can do it without it having too many consequences. Next year you will graduate, and after that, zoom off to the Bar, and law school, and all those pleasantries you call your dream job,” Lionel waved. “ _My_ job is to remind you that you’ve got something else to care about, and _that_ something else isn’t a 6’4 with blond hair and blue eyes. That something else is you, honey. Just think about it,” she said genuinely as the waiter scurried back to their table.

*

Zero was back at the base of his building. It was a little past three in the afternoon, on a Wednesday, and he was fully aware he should have been sitting at the back of a classroom taking notes and listening to the blabber of his teachers for at least another two hours, instead of searching his pockets for his keys, but he just couldn’t do that. His eyes nonchalantly slipped over the small outline sitting by the entrance, on the three steps leading down to the sidewalk, and if that small outline hadn’t _sneezed_ just as he passed by maybe he wouldn’t even have turned his head at all.

“ _Laura_?” Zero blurted out, eyes growing wide, as he realized it was his _goddamn little sister_ sitting there like some kind of hobo. She took her headphones off and gave him a bright smile, but he cut her off as soon as she opened her mouth to speak. “W-What are you doing here? Is Allie with you? Or Samuel?”

She pouted and she took the time to put her headphones and her iPad back in her mustard backpack before answering. “No. I came alone.”

Zero’s eyes grew even wider, probably as big as saucers at this point. “You did- _Alone?_ But how did you get here?” he sputtered.

Laura sighed. “I took a cab,” she admitted, pulling her hair back behind her ear as she spoke, a tic that she had when she was nervous.

There was a second where he just stared at her, too taken aback, before pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oh for fuck’s sake! I’m taking you home, right now.” He had already hopped down the three steps when he realized she wasn’t following him. “Laura, I said right now!”

“No!” she protested, throwing her backpack on her shoulder, almost defiantly.

“ _No_?” he repeated incredulously. “Laura, are you insane? You crossed the entire town to get here! Anything could have happened to you! Does anyone know you’re here?”

She dropped her eyes, but she still wasn’t moving from her spot in front of the entrance. “Not really…,” she mumbled.

Oh God he didn’t like this. He didn’t like this _at all_. “What do you mean by ‘not really’?”

“I didn’t tell anyone, okay?” she eventually said. “Mom left me at my tennis lesson but it turned out my teacher had told us today’s lesson was cancelled and I just forgot about it; and Mom is busy this afternoon, I didn’t want to bother her so I just thought I could come here instead,” she explained hastily before taking her breath.

Call him insensitive or doubtful by nature but he didn’t buy the story one bit. It sounded like she had just conveniently forgotten about her tennis lesson being cancelled, and frankly he didn’t expect any less from her.

Zero sighed, shaking his head. “Laura, I’m serious. Pick up your stuff, I’m taking you home.”

“There’s no one to watch me. I want to stay here with you!”

“Laura, I can’t keep you here. If they find out about it, Allie and Samuel will be pissed at me and I can’t deal with that right now,” Zero protested.

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Laura complained. “I’m not a baby; I can take care of myself. See? I got here without a scratch!”

“That’s beside the point; you’re not supposed to even _try_. For God’s sake, I can’t believe you _came here_. What would you have done if I hadn’t been there?”

“But you _are_ ,” she argued matter-of-factly.

And he wasn’t supposed to be here, he almost said, but he held back his tongue just before it slipped out. Smart as she was, Laura could have been well able to blackmail him in exchange for spending the afternoon there. Honestly he didn’t even know what was so cool about it. Her stuff was at Allie and Samuel’s; they had nothing she liked upstairs, not even a single movie she liked to watch on any hard-drive, let alone stuff she ate. And yet she didn’t seem about to let it go just like that.

Zero let out another sigh and spread his arms. “What do you expect from me, honestly? To say ‘Of course sis, come on in, sis’? You’re 9! You’re not supposed to wander around in the street!”

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t _wander around_ , I just took a cab. Come on, I just want to hang out with you,” she pleaded.

Zero was beginning to feel his determination crumble second after second, but it probably had more to do with the fact that he was nervously wrecked these days, so basically anything could make him run short on patience and even shorter on energy.

“When is Allie supposed to come fetch you from your tennis lesson?”

“Five,” Laura said immediately, then she bit the inside of her cheek when she met Zero’s doubtful glare. “Four thirty.”

What on Earth would have happened if he hadn’t seen right through her and had fallen for five? _A mountain of trouble_. Zero dragged himself up the three steps and tiredly started searching again for his keys while he unlocked his phone and handed it to Laura with Allie’s number pre-dialed.

“You tell her where you are.”

She grinned victoriously, until Allie started yelling at her from the other end of the line, then Zero grinned when she handed him back his phone, scowling. “You are mean.”

“You are welcome,” he retorted with an eye-roll as he opened the main door of the building. “Now get in.”

It took two minutes for Laura to regain her smile when they padded to the elevator. A frown appeared on Zero’s face as soon as the doors opened on his neighbor’s daughter, who greeted him with a much-too-friendly expression, all duck-face and battling eyelashes. Zero got imperceptibly closer to Laura as she walked away.

“I don’t like her make-up,” Laura observed when they got inside the small space.

“That makes two of us,” Zero mumbled as he hit the button for the fifth floor. They remained silent for the first two floors; then it seemed to hit Zero. “I can’t believe you tricked me into baby-sitting you.”

“I’m not a baby,” she scoffed. “It’s _always_ the same. It’s always you and Mom and Dad on one side, and then me and the twins.”

“Laura, you live with them. They are _your_ parents. I’m just borrowing them from time to time,” he shook his head as the elevator reached his floor and the doors rolled open.

“And you never borrow me,” she complained, trailing behind him while he unlocked the front door. She walked in as he made room for her to enter the flat, and dropped her bag in the living room.

“Because I’m busy and you are 9,” Zero retorted, closing the door.

She plopped down on the couch. “So I’m too stupid to be scared when you’re in the hospital?”

Zero’s pace faltered when he was about to go to the kitchen and he turned around on the spot. So that’s what this was about, he thought. Laura was sitting on the couch, legs tucked against her chest, obviously looking somewhere else.

He rounded the couch and dropped himself next to her. “I’m sorry if you freaked out, but trust me I never meant for that to happen.”

“I know that,” she pouted. “Everyone was talking about it; they just didn’t want to speak to me. I thought you were _dying_.”

Zero gave her a lopsided smile. “Don’t you think you’re being a little bit dramatic?”

“No,” she retorted, looking literally at the other side of the room to avoid his knowing look.

He rolled his eyes and nudged her. “Hey, I let you stay here. The least you could do is to pretend you’re not mad at me.”

She groaned, sat cross-legged, and eventually started to smile when Zero remembered that the love of his life was a total dork and that they had some good old Mario Kart lying around somewhere. That definitely did the trick and Zero was almost surprised to see that time had flown by pretty quickly when the interphone rang, indicating that Allie was downstairs.

“I was winning!” Laura complained, her mouth stuffed with Oreos.

Zero snorted. _Yeah sure_. She was putting her shoes back on when he went to open the door to let their mother in.

“Laura Aimee Hipwell,” Allie fumed as soon as she came in, and Laura squirmed on the couch. “You better be ready to be grounded until you are sixteen because it’s starting _tonight_.”

She didn’t argue with that and put her backpack on her shoulders, before sadly walking her way to the front door; mumbling a small ‘thank you’ as she passed by Zero. Allie’s eyes looked like a stormy sky when she stared back at Zero. He almost thought she would start yelling at him too, but her face softened, and she simply huffed a sigh, with a pointed look towards Laura’s direction. A joyful ‘ _Hi Jude_ ’ echoed in the hallway, drawing their attention away.

Jude briefly gave Laura a hug before stepping in the doorway of the flat. “Hi everyone?” he asked, surprised, before turning a confused look at Zero. “Did I forget about something?”

“No, we were just going. Long story — and long punishment,” Allie growled, scowling at Laura, who stared at her shoes. “Thanks honey, for telling me,” she said and on her way out she planted a brief kiss on Zero’s cheek.

His hands clenched automatically and he looked somewhere else as Allie and Laura were leaving and the front door closing behind a still confused-looking Jude.

“Zero?” he asked, and Zero turned to him, a little stunned.

“Yeah. All good,” he said, grabbing the empty boxes of Oreos and empty soda cans on the coffee table and throwing them in the trash in the kitchen.

He could feel Jude’s eyes on him as he was doing so, even though his boyfriend pretended to be busy kicking off his shoes. Zero padded in the kitchen and wiped his hands clean from any possible crumbs, far too silently and too carefully not to turn into an obsession — at least until two hands gently reached for his hips.

Zero swallowed thickly but he didn’t turn back, even when Jude softly nuzzled at his neck. “There are moments-,” he started, eyes fixated on an invisible spot in front of him; then he paused, shaking his head to himself. “There are moments where it feels like it doesn’t matter. It’s like… It’s like something itching at the back of your head, but it’s- it’s _bearable_. And then…” He pressed his lips hard together, trying to ease the growing lump in his throat. “Then something like that happens. And I’m not- I’m not part of it. I’ll never be,” he whispered, voice breaking along the way.

Jude had probably little to no understanding of the situation, but it didn’t seem to matter to either of them. He just whispered a soft ‘ _shh, I know baby’_ that couldn’t help, his lips brushing against the back of his neck, but it was the only thing Zero wanted to hear.

Laura could be his sister. Lottie and Julian could be his siblings.

But Allie would never be his mom. It would never happen.

And up until now, he had never really realized he had kept waiting for that connection to happen, yet knowing it likely never will.


	27. Chapter 27

Jude accompanied Zero for his first appointment with his brand new shrink three days after Laura snuck her way across town, on Saturday. Dr. Amanda Andrews was beyond sixty and no more than 5 feet tall, but Zero quickly realized that she had other ways to make up for it, if her firm handshake was any indication.

In complete honesty, Zero didn’t remember much of the introductory session. For a good ten minutes it was mostly paperwork. Insurance stuff, when he had seen his doctor for the last time, if he was under medication… He halfheartedly went through it for the second time in a month before returning the papers signed and the information completed. After that, they sat in comfortable armchairs on either side of a coffee table, like they were in a living room, and they talked.

Dr. Andrews quickly went through the five pages contained in his mental health record handed over by Ridgley in their last session, before literally dumping it in the trash next to her in a very dramatic flourish. “Let’s not embarrass ourselves with this,” she said sententiously. She reviewed the papers he had just handed back to her. “During our phone call you said you had a bad experience with your first therapist?”

Zero nodded. “Yeah. He wasn’t really… shy about making his opinions clear. We didn’t really see eye to eye, so...”

Dr. Andrews tilted her head to the side. “Really? And what was this about?”

Zero cleared his throat. “My boyfriend, mostly. He just decided he wasn’t good for me, apparently.”

“And on what grounds did he forge his opinion?” she asked, somewhat haughtily.

Zero felt uncomfortable. “I don’t really know. It’s like he had decided from the beginning that there was something wrong in every good thing Jude had ever done for me.” No matter how adamantly Zero had tried to get his point across about the fact that Jude had always dealt with his shit, it was only met with a sententious ‘hero complex’ grumble.

Dr. Andrews sighed. “I’m glad you decided to give therapy another try. Most people who get a bad experience just don’t want to start it all over again, either because of the money wasted or because they consider that therapy as a whole is useless.” She considered him for a second. “You seem to have talked a lot about your relationship with your previous therapist. Was it something you were insecure about in the first place?”

“No,” Zero replied sincerely; he dropped his gaze on the coffee table between him and Dr. Andrews. “We have our fair share of fights like everybody else but… He’s the most important person in my life, no doubt.” He paused for a moment then he had a bitter chuckle and shook his head. “And this is the moment you tell me I’m ‘wrapped up in his personality’; that he’s so ‘over controlling’ that I can’t even think for myself ‘properly as an individual’ and all that shit.”

She had a knowing smile. “Really? Just because you are 20 and you’re madly in love with your boyfriend?”

Zero bit at his bottom lip. “So I’m not that special, huh?”

She crossed her legs, adjusting her position, and only then Zero realized she was holding a pad of paper and a pen. When had she taken those? “You _are_ special. Everybody is. What you’re experiencing in terms of relationships and character building isn’t. People try so hard to sell the tale that by 20 you’ve got to have everything figured out.” She pointed at the form he had just completed. “Judging by this, you’re already well enough on the path of character building for your age. Don’t you think?”

Zero pressed his lips together and he scrapped his arm absent-mindedly.

“You seem a little tense,” she observed.

“I don’t really like talking to new people about me,” he mumbled.

“We can just talk about the weather if you’d like. Really. We’re not forced to talk about you just now if you don’t feel like it,” Dr. Andrews said.

Zero cocked an eyebrow. “Won’t it affect, like, the purpose of therapy or something?”

“The purpose of therapy is to make you comfortable enough so that you can, eventually, unleash the things that make you uncomfortable. It’s just a matter of balancing and timing,” Dr. Andrews said as a matter-of-fact. “If you want to talk about the weather, or not talk at all for an entire three weeks, I’m fine with it.”

Zero huffed and shook his head. “I’d rather not. I really don’t like making small talk.”

“I’ll tell you something, I really don’t like that either,” she said.

There was a moment of silence in the office, where it was just the humming of the cars passing down the street. “It wasn’t just about Jude — my boyfriend —, that I stopped the therapy with Ridgley,” Zero admitted. “He wanted me to confront stuff from my past and- I didn’t know how to tell him I didn’t feel ready about it. He’d just insist that it was the right thing to do.”

Dr. Andrews nodded. “And why did you feel like you were not ready to face them?”

Zero looked down. “Because I still dream about it. Sometimes it’s still… like a physical pain. Sometimes I hear stuff that reminds me of it. It’s just… It freaks me out. And I don’t know if that’s ever going to stop.”

“I can’t promise it will go away,” Dr. Andrews said. “But I can assure you I’ll do my best to reach that point. Have you ever discussed a medical treatment with your previous therapist?”

“Like, antidepressants?” Zero asked nervously; then shook his head. “No, never. Frankly I don’t know if I’m allowed to take those.”

Dr. Andrews gave him a reassuring smile. “There’s still plenty of time to think about it anyway.”

They quickly went through a possible schedule after that; according to her, two appointments a week was a good place to start.

“The point of therapy isn’t to overwhelm you,” Dr. Andrews said towards the end of the fifty-minute session. “There will _always_ be moments in a week where you won’t be able to deal with me. I can assure you that finding two days every week where you are not worked up with _any_ emotion at all is a real struggle in itself. Let’s not push it any more than that.”

If Zero was in any place to judge, this was a far cry from Ridgley and his constant need to check on him three times a week — given the chance, maybe he would have insisted on seeing him on a daily basis even. As it was, Dr. Andrews’ idea didn’t sound bad, so Zero agreed.   
  
At the end of the session she dismissed him with a handshake and Zero walked out of the office, closing the door carefully behind him.  Jude, his knees bouncing with anticipation, was flipping through an old magazine in the waiting room when he saw his boyfriend emerge.

“How’d it go?” Jude asked cautiously as he rose to walk out with him.   
“Dunno” and a shrug, was the only answer he got.

They continued talking in the second session, the following Wednesday, and Zero barely had any more memories of it than the first one. The subject of his academics was brought up a little, his friends, etc. He said he had gone back to talk with Alford (after dragging it for weeks, but that he didn’t say), but he didn’t really know how to muster up the energy to work out because he was pretty much exhausted from dawn to sunset. Dr. Andrews told him it was okay not to feel like doing anything, and in that moment he remembered becoming cautious all over again, snapping out of the somewhat foggy-state he was in since the beginning of the session. Of course that wasn’t _okay_ , he wanted to argue. You didn’t get anything out of life with such a goddamn philosophy. He couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason why he felt angry all of a sudden; but in any case, that feeling was familiar, and almost comforting.

His weeks started to have a pattern again. Or the closest thing to a pattern he had had since the beginning of March Madness. At the third session, he said he had gone out with Derek on Thursday night, after he had convinced him to bring back their Burger night tradition, but he had regretted it because he hadn’t been able to make it out of bed the following morning. Dr. Andrews asked why he felt guilty, and he said that it was because Jude had stayed in too, but contrary to him he had important stuff to do on Friday mornings.

“And you don’t think you do?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Dunno. The season is over. Things are different.”

Dr. Andrews watched him for a moment. “You said you were tired. That you just couldn’t get up after spending the evening out with your friend. Did something happen while you were out?”

Zero considered it. “We crossed paths with some people.”

“People,” the therapist repeated slowly with a raised eyebrow.

“People I don’t like. People who don’t like me.”

Dr. Andrews simply nodded. “Do you often ‘cross paths’ with them?”

Zero pressed his lips together. “Not anymore since the season’s been wrapped up.”

“So you used to see them a lot, I gather. Could that perpetual state of fatigue be an emotional response from your body?”

Zero looked somewhere else. “Could be. Or it’s just my body who’s decided to fuck me up.”

Dr. Andrews smiled. “I’m one of those annoying people who think that everything has an explanation. Did that happened to you in the past?”

“Yeah,” Zero admitted after a moment. “When I was, _uh_ , when I was in high school. My boyfriend had to undergo open-heart surgery and his family didn’t want me to see him. Staying away, it was- it was really hard for me. I just couldn’t get up, you know? I just couldn’t get up and go on pretending things were fine.”

“Is this how you feel these days? That things aren’t fine and you are just pretending they are?”

Zero nodded and Dr. Andrews put down the paper pad she always had on her lap but never wrote anything on, looking at him. “How would you feel about taking medication?”

“Medication?” he frowned. “How so?”

“There’s a difference between feeling blue and being depressed. One is a normal phenomenon that has to do with your emotions and your environment, a condition you can improve by making the right changes around you or simply taking better care of yourself. The other is a medical condition that has to do with your brain, and the chemical balance that affects your emotions and your perception of the world once it’s disturbed,” she explained.

So there was something wrong with him, Zero thought. Something that needed to be fixed, something that needed to be _cured_. He didn’t know if that was comforting. It just meant that he was broken.

Zero said he didn’t know if he simply could get any medical treatment because of the NCAA and doping tests. Dr. Andrews agreed that they’d take the time to talk about it, and Zero walked out of her office with a lot to think about.

*

Jude was surprised to find a tall, slender black girl waiting by the front door of his apartment when he got out of the elevator. What had happened to the time where people just called beforehand? The girl was leaning against the wall, flicking through her phone probably, and Jude couldn’t help the pang in his chest when she turned towards him.

_Nessa Werner._

Okay, first of all, they had never officially met before. Jude had heard her name in the hallways like everybody else. And if he only knew what she looked like because he had gone through her Instagram account out of sheer jealousy last year, no one could blame him because he was mending a broken heart. And damn, he hated that she looked so pretty. He hated that she looked so pretty _and_ that she was there at all.

_Please don’t make it another round with the mean exes._

“Can I help you?” Jude asked politely, albeit coldly, as he took out his keys and let them jingle in his hand while he reached his front door.

“Oh, hi,” Nessa said, taking herself off the wall. She had peach-black, almond-shaped eyes that she nervously dropped for a second, before looking back at Jude. “I came to, um, see Zero.” Yeah. Jude was really _that_ lucky. “To check on him. I was told he wasn’t really all that well.”

Jude cocked an eyebrow. “Did Kyle tell you that?” If she had, she would definitely get a piece of his mind, that was for sure. Childhood friend or not, there was a good reason they were trying to keep Zero’s current situation under control, and it was to protect his prospects in the future.

“No. Maddie did,” Nessa said.

Jude stared at her, taken aback. “Maddie?”

Nessa nodded. “Yeah. I guess there’s just this bond that you develop with the person who opened your eyes to your psycho boyfriend?”

“Ah. Yeah, it makes sense,” Jude muttered. Did it though? Jude wasn’t sure he would want to be reminded of it by befriending the person who had opened his eyes, but maybe that was just him who was that petty in the end.

There was a short and frankly awkward silence, and Nessa soon cleared her throat and tugged at a lock of her long, smooth ponytail. “So… do you know when he will, like, be home?”

“Oh, uh, not really. I don’t think he’ll come back until 6,” Jude said cautiously.

Okay maybe Zero would come back before that. Maybe he was a terrible person and maybe he was just a total asshole, but he couldn’t help _not_ liking the idea of Zero and his ex-girlfriend, who was _terribly hot_ , reunited in the same room, let alone at _their place_.

Nessa pouted a little. “That’s too bad, I won’t be able to wait that long,” she said, checking her phone for the time. She locked it up and slid it back in her back pocket. “Look, I know it’s- I know it’s weird, and I know it probably gives you massive murder waves to see me here, (Jude totally felt his cheeks heat up and he wanted to murder himself for that) but I’m not trying to do anything wrong. I treated him like shit when I thought he had published the pics and… I want to make up for that.”

Jude stared at her, but he found no trace of malice in her dark eyes. She seemed so _sincere_. No one was that nice. No one was ever that nice to _the current boyfriend_ of _your ex-boyfriend._ “I’ve had my share with the other girls since high school, honestly,” he huffed, shaking his head.

She raised an eyebrow. “Schneider, huh? I’m not like her, if that makes you feel any better,” she said, shrugging slightly. “Zero and I, we were friends before… before you two broke up. If at some point there’d been feelings involved, it was only a mistake on my part. He was only ever thinking about you.”

_Yeah_. Still. There had been feelings involved; now he was certain of it. Damn he hated this situation. She was acting so nice and so genuine; he couldn’t even decently _hate_ _her_ , and that was fricking unfair because he _had the right_ to hate her. That was how basic human feelings worked. If he was starting to feel sorry for the girl, no wonder why the world was acting all crazy.

He barely restrained an eye-roll as he huffed another sigh. “Don’t do that,” he snorted. She looked up at him with a questioning glance. “You don’t have to act all… _miserable_ , I’m not asking you to crawl down on your knees. I may still be trying to make peace with whatever Zero did when we were separated, but it doesn’t mean you have to make whatever you two had sound worthless just to appease me,” he said, half-heartedly. Because yes, in the end what good would it be to just pretend it never existed? Jude didn’t want to live in the comfortable world of his own illusions.

She pressed her full lips together. “Yeah, I gotta go. I, _uh_ , I’m sorry for making things weird by coming here,” she said, waving with her hand as she picked up her purse. She was just turning back to walk away when she paused and looked at him again. “Maybe you should call Maddie? She wants to go back to Boston and with Austin and all…”

Jude frowned. “What with him?”

“He cheated on her,” Nessa sighed. “She broke up with him and now she wants to go back to Boston.”

“ _What?_ When did that happen? She didn’t tell me!” Jude blurted, eyes widening.

God he had to be the worst friend on Earth. He tried to remember the last time he had talked to her, or to Kyle, or to Raquel, or to _Derek_ , but nothing came.

Oh fuck, maybe Lionel was right. Maybe he should get out of this apartment more often.

“Er, she didn’t want to tell you _precisely_ because she said you already had your plate full with Zero these days. Hence how I found out about… well, _him_ ,” Nessa admitted, gesturing vaguely. “Just call her. I could use some help to get her to stay. Maybe seeing him on a daily basis won't be easy at first, but you learn to live with it and to suck it up.”

Jude chose to believe she was speaking about Maddie.

_Wishful thinking_.

*

“Nessa came by this afternoon.”

Zero took his eyes away from the TV, where they were watching Netflix in relative silent, and directed his attention to Jude, who just let his gaze drop to the huge bowl of candy they were sharing. It took him a few seconds to gather what Jude had just said, and he furrowed his brow. “What?”

“She was… She was here when I got home. She wanted to check on you.”

There was a brief silence and Zero scooted a little towards him. “I’m sorry; I never imagined she would-”

“It’s okay. I guess? She wasn’t being bitchy, at least not to my face.  I’ve known worse,” Jude joked, but it sounded strained.

Zero felt guilt spreading through every fiber of his body and he wriggled closer, bashfully ducking his head. “She’s… Yeah, I don’t think she’s the kind to do that.”

Jude hummed and picked up a couple of licorice laces from the bowl between them. “Maybe you should call her back. Just, you know, so that she doesn’t think I’m the spiteful type who doesn’t share the message.”

Zero glanced at him. “You’d be okay with me talking to her?”

Jude didn’t reply at first, munching on his candy in silence. “Maybe. Yeah.”

They fell silent again and the living room echoed only with the sound of the TV they had long forgotten about.

“I never asked,” Zero said quietly after a while. Jude looked at him, a strand of his hair threatening to fall into his eyes, just like Zero loved it. “Because I thought I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I thought I’d want to crush their faces as soon as I saw them. But that’s not fair right? You never asked to know, you just had to deal with it.”

Jude seemed to get it and he sighed. “Zero, I don’t think it’s a good idea right now.”

“I need to ask.” His throat was growing a little tighter but he didn’t want to leave it at that, so he forced himself to keep going. “Did you see other people while we were separated?”

Jude took a moment to respond, probably to gauge at his possible reactions. “Yeah, I did.”

Zero expected to feel something devastating, to want to rip the couch apart, to want to yell his lungs out. But he just felt his stomach churn. “Did you like them?”

“Zero, they weren’t you,” Jude shook his head slowly. “That’s all that mattered to me back then. They weren’t you.”

Zero wasn’t sure if he meant it in a positive way or not. Maybe that’s what had pushed him to see other people in the first place. Maybe Jude just hated him so much that he wanted someone as different as humanly possible. What if he walked away now? What else would he have? Basketball? He wasn’t even sure that was true these days.

Zero pressed his lips together and almost startled when Jude’s hand reached out to nudge his chin up and look him in the eye.

“Enough talk about the exes,” he said, his hazel eyes exuding something both serious and terribly comforting. “I just told you about Nessa because it’s important that you know other people care about you too. Not just me.”

“But I don’t care about them if they make you miserable,” Zero huffed, Jude’s hand leaving his face to settle onto his lap.

“They don’t make me miserable. Not anymore. Not the way they used to,” Jude admitted.

“Why?”

His boyfriend gave him a small smile and took the bowl to put it on the coffee table before sliding a little closer. “Because someone tried to get into your head to kick me out of it and you didn’t let them.”

“They’d have to lobotomize me for that,” he replied matter-of-factly, “because I don’t plan on letting anyone do that.”

Jude snorted and Zero leaned in to claim his lips.

“I need to tell you something about next summer,” his boyfriend said as they parted. “I was… Lionel’s dad’s friend offered me an internship…in France. It’s supposed to be for a month.”

Zero felt his heart clench and all the signals that were still working right in his brain set themselves on alarm. Jude seemed to perceive his panic because he gently cupped his face. “I haven’t said yes. Okay? I just- I don’t know, you never talked about next summer. If you’re busy all over again with the Summer Camp, it should be- it shouldn’t be so bad right? You’d be busy all day long teaching kids to shoot hoops and you wouldn’t even have time to miss me.”

“I never talked about this summer because I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Zero eventually said, voice hoarse. “I wanted to declare this year, for the draft.”

Jude’s eyebrows shot up. “Y-you what?”

Zero’s gaze fell. “I wanted to declare. I wanted to try my luck; I wanted to quit the goddamn NCAA. I could- I could have _pulled this off._ But now I’m so fucked up, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to make it into the Team at all next fall.”

That’s what he wanted most. Leave the Campus, drop out of college, and never hear about all those assholes again.

_Just start over_.

“I had no idea you wanted that,” Jude said quietly. “You never said anything, even when we talked about Terrence getting drafted.”

“Because I wanted to see where the Championship would take me.” So much irony it hurt. He huffed a painful snort and shook his head. “But that wasn’t the point. We were talking about you.”

Jude ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure I’ll go to begin with. It’s not exactly my field — or the field that is supposed to be mine someday. It’s in a financial PR company. Basically, Lionel just wants me to go to wave hello and goodbye to businessmen.”

_Lionel wants me to go_.

Of course. Lionel was basically Jude’s mom; it was obvious Jude’s interests were her main concern. It was just painful to realize that for the first time, staying here with him wasn’t the best choice regarding Jude.

“Maybe I could tag along.”

“No you’re not,” Jude replied, and Zero’s brow furrowed. “The Draft Combine is in, what, a month? Those people will tell you if you stand a chance in the NBA. You _do_ have a career and a future and lots of stuff to plan for this summer.”

“It almost sounds like you don’t want me to come,” Zero said, only half-upset.

“Because you’ve got better things to do here than visit the Louvre Museum with me,” Jude argued.

Zero observed him a little and sighed. “Lionel’s right. You should go.”

“I never said I even _wanted_ to go,” Jude huffed. “I’m just saying that I got an offer, which I’m merely considering.”

“Well if you do, I hope you’re not getting yourself a French lover while you’re at it.” He had aimed for a joke but the timing sucked probably and the tease ran dry in his mouth.

Jude rolled his eyes and shook his head to himself. “Shut up. I told you it'd always be just you and me.”

“Always? Really? Such a long time. Even I don’t want to stick with myself for so long,” Zero snorted, picking a some candy randomly from the bowl.

Jude didn’t seem fazed. “Fine. How about we take one step at a time?” he said casually. “You know. See where every five years takes us.”

“And what happens at the end of the five years?” Zero asked, cautiously. “You just ditch me?”

“Gimme your hand, you dummy,” Jude retorted and Zero held out his left hand distractedly. His boyfriend took it but instead of tangling their fingers together, something slid around… well, his ring finger. Zero stared, taken aback, at the makeshift ring made of licorice lace, while Jude smiled (a little smugly even).

“Jude...,” Zero articulated.

Jude had the audacity to chuckle, and he just wrapped his arms around Zero’s shoulders before planting a kiss on his cheek. “Don't freak out. I'm not proposing,” he shrugged, and Zero waved his hand with a cocked eyebrow, because if that wasn’t proposing it looked a lot freaking like it (minus a proper ring, of course). “I'm _just_ saying that five years, that's a good number right? Hopefully by then I'll be done with the Bar. You’ll already be a superstar. And all this shit will be behind us for good. Right?”

Zero felt a huge, soft smile take over his face, and he knew in that very moment he was probably the embodiment of ‘smitten kitten’. And he didn’t care, because Jude wanted him. He truly wanted him, maybe even for goddamn ever.

“Of course babe,” he replied, leaning against him and pressing a kiss to the corner of Jude’s mouth before tucking his head in the crook of his neck.

“Jude?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you hate me if I ate my engagement ring?” he asked innocently.

Jude laughed, tender and carefree; and hell, that was the only laugh Zero wanted to hear forever.

*

Zero was sitting in the waiting room of Dr. Andrews’ office, but for the first time he didn’t really feel that bubbling nervousness that usually threatened to blow up at the mere thought of talking to someone about his problems. The reason for that was the five pages he had folded and slid into his back pocket.

It was late the night before, after Jude had fallen asleep, exhausted but sated by their lovemaking, that he had started thinking about it. In the semi-darkness of the room, only flooded by the weak light of the streetlamps down the street, he stared at his hand; the candy ring already long disappeared. Jude hadn’t _actually_ asked him to marry him. And even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to take him seriously.

_Still_.

Jude deserved better than a forever-depressed husband… Or fiancé, or whatever.

Jude deserved someone tough; someone strong.

Someone who wouldn’t need him to be there for him every single day of his life. Jude deserved better than him. Better than anything he had to offer right now. But he couldn’t leave him; he would just as well shoot himself in the head.

Zero had gotten up, trying not to wake Jude as he untangled their limbs and slipped out of the bed; then spent about an hour googling the best tips to open up. Everybody had told him to _open up_ , that it was the key for someone who was sick as he was. But how did you do that? How did you just confide to people that you were not fine, that you were not okay? The answer came a little out of the blue; when he realized that the problem wasn’t the confession itself, but the _saying it out loud_. So he had taken a pad of paper and a pen, and just started writing. Five pages, actually. And since his handwriting tended to decrease in size when he was writing fast, at any other given moment perhaps five more would have been useful.

He had written it all. The scarce memories he had from his time with Allie. _Benji_ , tall, handsome, blond Benji, and that realization that had hit him like a truck upon first meeting him three years ago that they did meet before; crushing everything he had always thought was true. He had written about the mean social worker. About the blurry faces of the multiple families he had been placed in, melting altogether regardless of the houses or the people. Then the Delucas, and how things had gone down after they had moved out of the first house. The kids he had met here and there, never staying long; Leo slapping him so hard he had fallen onto the coffee table because the TV remote wasn’t working, and then Carla coming home to force him to take a freezing-cold bath to reduce the amount of noticeable bruises.

That’s what his life had started to look like after that. A quest to hide the marks left by the one who was supposed to take care of him better than his mom. A tale of broken bones and survival.

Zero sighed and stretched out his legs, just before the door of the office opened. He stood up, avoiding Dr. Andrews’ pleasant expression a little as he made his way inside.

“How do you feel today?” Dr. Andrews asked after greeting him.

“Uh, Fine, I guess,” he mumbled as she sat down at her designated spot by the window.

She glanced up at him expectantly since he wasn’t moving.

_Do it_.

_Now._

His hand reached back to pull out the folded papers from his back pocket. “I wrote it down.”

She seemed a little surprised and frowned in confusion. “What?”

“Everything,” he said as he handed it to her.

Until the very last moment, until the moment she reached for it and his fingers let go of it, he didn’t know if he’d be able to do it. To just let someone in. But he had done it with Jude. Jude knew everything there was to know, and it was fine.

Dr. Andrews looked up at him. “Do you want me to read it now… or later?”

He pondered the question. “Does it make me a coward if I choose the second option?”

She smiled. “I don’t think so.”

He hummed and eventually sat down. Dr. Andrews carefully placed the folded papers on the coffee table, letting him know that he could back out at any moment.

“Did you think about the medication?” she asked after they were done reviewing the last two days.

“Not really,” he admitted.

She nodded. “That’s alright. In any case, I took the liberty to gather some information, so you could make up your mind with all the useful things to know.” She stood up and went behind her desk, on the other side of the room, to retrieve a small file from a drawer that she handed to him. “You told me you were worried about the Basketball League not accepting your medical treatment?”

He simply nodded as she sat down. “Then I have good news on the subject. A few studies have been conducted in the past few years and concluded that it won’t impact your performance. You’d be forced to declare them as any other medications you’d take if you’re undergoing drug-testing, however that’s not considered to be a doping product.”

“Really?” he asked stupidly. “So the League would be okay with it?”

“I think so, but check one more time with your Coach and your Medical Team if you consider a medical treatment,” Dr. Andrews said.

“And would it affect…,” he stopped. “Would it affect my personality?”

Dr. Andrews gave it a thought. “Not your personality. It will affect your behavior in extreme situations, however.”

“In what way?”

“It depends,” she admitted. “Every patient is different, Zero. There’s nothing written in stone for everyone. You might react differently, or not differently at all. It also depends on how much you remember of your behavior before depression affected your way of dealing with the world. But it won’t affect the way you see it or the way you think about it.”

Zero pressed his lips together and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I think… I think I want to try. Yeah. I want to try.”


	28. Chapter 28

Jude was pissed.

More than that, he was literally _seething_. There should be some sort of safeguard in life to ensure that the people you didn’t want to cross path with don’t just pop up around the corner when all you wanted was to basically _mind_ _your_ _business_. But no, he had to witness Ryder and his buddies — so far he recognized Curtis and DiAnthony with him — laughing and talking loudly, all bright smiles and barking laughter in the hallway.

It shouldn’t have bothered him.

Oh hell, of course it _should,_ and most importantly, it did.

The reason that had Jude scowling in his corner, giving them the same terrifying look he didn’t even know he had inherited from his father, was the huge disappointment that had been his boyfriend’s life recently. A week and a half had passed since he had the big talk with Zero about their future and their plans for next summer, and the last few days were supposed to bring the biggest announcement of Zero’s life so far — his invite for the Draft Combine, which was supposed to be held mid-May. But it hadn’t. On April 30th, at 11:59PM, Zero had shut his laptop closed after spending the day waiting for the precious email to pop up, and come to terms with the fact that his invite would never come.

All In all, it wasn’t the end of the world. The Combine was a big event, sure; that’s where the nearly-70 best baby-ballers were getting tested and measured, and their performances reviewed before the actual Draft, but plenty of big names who had later had a breakthrough in the NBA hadn’t gotten their invite for the Combine in the first place either. But it was still a serious blow. _Especially_ when, on the other side of the country, Terrence had not only received his invite, but simply declined attending because his prospects for the Draft didn’t really need to be reviewed anyway.

Naturally, Zero’s name had appeared on every single article reviewing the most surprising ‘snubs’ of this year’s Combine. Everyone felt like he should have been on the list, so it wasn’t just Jude being bitter and petty till the end of times. To make matters worse, soon the articles started talking about rumors that had surfaced in Portsmouth, a month ago, when all the seniors of the NCAA’s first division had gathered for a four-day tournament. They pretended that Zero had lost his nerves during the Sweet Sixteen and were asking whether or not his mental condition was the real reason he had been snubbed by the Draft Combine — and even worse, whether or not he still had a shot at being drafted at all.

Honestly, Jude had thought, like everybody else, that it could have come from literally anyone present in Portsmouth, possibly one of the Bruins’ senior players or from the staff. That was, until he heard that during his meeting with the Disciplinary Committee, following their return from the Championship, Ryder had found no better angle to justify his behavior than stating that Zero had been in a weird mood prior the Sweet Sixteen and he and the other players had been questioning his mental health plenty of times _before_ he broke down.

It didn’t leave much to the imagination after that, and certainly didn’t take a genius to put 2 and 2 together.

Ryder had been scolded and suspended for a few days, but nothing had been written on his academic record, while no one cared that ‘GAME OVER’ had been metaphorically stamped all over Zero’s, in screaming red ink.

Jude was just that petty. He was petty and pissed and he was tired of having to run on worry all the damn time. He didn’t blame Zero for that; he blamed those who had broken him so much he hadn’t been able to recognize his own _boyfriend_ after getting punched. The very person who had made everything he had been building with Zero for three years crumble because of his stupid jealousy was there, across the hall. In complete honesty, he _had_ noticed that his hands were forming fists already, but strangely enough, not that he had started walking right in the ballers’ direction, next to the water fountain. Not until someone literally slid right in front of him, almost making him stumble in the process.

“Oh, hey, you should probably rethink that,” the girl said with a pointed look, and it took Jude a second to shake himself out of his thoughts and realize that the girl was Nessa Werner.

Anger melted into annoyance as the ballers left the fountain to walk into the classroom nearby, and Jude glared down at her. “I don’t see why this should be your business exactly.”

Just before she could reply, a familiar voice echoed behind them.

“Hi there?” Maddie said hesitantly as she hovered next to them, her hair tied into a messy bun. “What are you guys doing here?”

Nessa shrugged and at least had the decency to withdraw from his personal space. “I was heading to my next lecture.”

Maddie quirked a brow. “No, what I meant was ‘why does it look like Jude is about to murder someone?’”

Jude folded his arms over his chest. “Why does everybody care about me murdering someone all of the sudden?” he pouted, still sulking.

The girls exchanged a look and Maddie suggested that they could go have a little chat in a place that wasn’t directly the hallway, so they wound up sitting on the grass in the Sculpture garden. Jude was all but okay with it but apparently he didn’t have a say, and Nessa said she still had half an hour before the beginning of her lecture anyway.

“So, does anybody care to explain?” Maddie asked, crossing her legs. 

“Mr. Alpha Male over here wanted to kick the Team’s ass,” Nessa said.

“Oh, great. You’ve got a death wish?” Maddie enquired unhelpfully.

“Thank you Mads,” he sarcastically replied.

Next to him, Nessa shrugged. “I don’t think it was _necessarily_ stupid.”

Maddie made a face. “I don’t see how going after someone who’s 6’5” and surrounded by other representatives of the same wild stock is exactly a ‘good idea’.”

“I didn’t _go after him_ ,” Jude protested and Nessa snorted.

“Yeah, because I stepped in. What would you have done if Ryder had decided to kick your ass?”

“I know how to throw a punch, thank you very much,” he snapped back and he scowled at the girls when they shared an eye-roll. “What does everybody expect me to do for fuck’s sake? Just stare and do _nothing_? I should have punched the hell out of him the first time I got the chance after that stupid Tournament!”

Now that was the understatement of the year. Hell, he should have gone to his goddamn hotel, broken into his room and kicked him right in the-

“What I meant is that these guys are seriously messing with a lot of people and they should expect that someone is going to bite back at some point,” Nessa commented calmly.

It was Jude’s turn to snort, but it was bitter. _Messing_ was a cute word to describe literal hell.

He should probably thank God that Nessa had happened to be around and dragged him out of a very painful prospect, but right now he had a little bit of trouble thinking that way.

“Yeah, but it’s not like people are prone to… actually _take revenge_ in reality,” Maddie pointed out.

“Well, I _am_ ,” Nessa retorted. “All I got for playing nice with Gavin was to be treated like the slut next door. What did you get for playing nice with Austin? And you for playing nice with Ryder?”

Jude shared a look with Maddie and shook his head. “As ready as I am to punch him, it doesn’t mean I want to spend the last few days before I turn 21 in juvie for attempted murder,” he deadpanned.

“I’m not saying I want to kill them,” Nessa scoffed. “I just want to get back at them. That’s merely being human.”

“And how exactly to you plan on doing that? If you throw a ‘Pretty Little Liars’ charade, I swear I’m out,” Maddie said.

“Depends on what you call a ‘Pretty Little Liars’ charade,” Nessa replied slowly, and the glance between Maddie and Jude had her sighing. “Okay, I just found a couple of old pics from when I dated Gav. They don’t exactly meet Alford’s behavioral requirements. And he’s almost never alone in those.”

Jude let his gaze drop to the grass. This wasn’t a good idea. He was the bigger man. At least he should _try to be_. Zero was going to get better. Things were going to be fine again, and no matter if Zero was actually willing to try next fall or not, Ryder would be gone anyway. Two months. That’s what they had left bearing his presence somewhere on Campus. They could live well enough with that, it wasn’t the end of the world.

_But_. That’s what he had been thinking all along, and things had never stopped going wrong. A week ago he could have convinced himself of that, but now he was more than fed up with playing nice.

“Okay,” Jude said. Nessa looked up at him. “Count me in.”

*

“Lucky me you’re so predictable,” a familiar voice drawled behind him.

Zero caught the ball after the third rebound; then scooted around to see Derek entering the small court. They had started playing here over ten years ago now. Everything had changed since then, but he was finding some comfort in keeping allegiance to the old place. Even if that meant signing a dozen shirts, pairs of shoes, or basketballs from the kids who had taken over the place after them.

“What’s up?” Zero muttered while aiming for the hoop.

Derek walked closer. “I’m the one who should be asking that. But you’re not returning my calls, or T’s. Big guy is getting worried,” he commented, easily catching the ball after Zero scored, and aiming for the hoop as well.

“He’s got other things than me to worry about. At least he should.”

“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t care,” Derek pointed out while Zero reached for the ball after a rebound.

“But that’s the thing. I don’t _want_ him to care. I want him to care about himself and his prospects and his career and all that shit,” Zero protested. “I’m already dealing with my man getting all twisted up about me; I think that’s enough in the guilt department. T’s crazy fit in the press room could have cost him a lot more.”

Wall should already consider himself lucky to have been only mildly scolded by the League for using the ‘fag’ word in the press room, rather than taking it as a battle scar.

Derek caught the ball and handed it over to Zero. “You mean like his Combine invite?”

“Yeah,” Zero mumbled, and he aimed for the hoop, not looking at his friend. “Something like that.”

“It means hardly anything these days.”

“It still means something,” he countered. “I haven’t been snubbed because of a bad season. I’ve been snubbed because people think I’m _insane_. That’s not something you can walk away from and say ‘fine I’ll have it my way and see you there’.”

It was the first time he was letting his frustration out — and in complete honesty, he didn’t know he had that much in him. Ever since the news had arrived, or rather, _didn’t_ arrive, he hadn’t particularly been bitter or angry. He was just feeling like it was one more bump along the road among a _thousand_.

“So what?” Derek shrugged, taking a step back to give Zero enough space to catch the ball. “You’re depressed. That’s a fact. It doesn’t mean you haven’t been able to make every shot since I got here.”

Zero steadied his hands on the ball and looked down at it, before looking back up at his friend. “You still think I stand a chance?” he asked, almost quietly.

Derek seemed to give it a thought, giving Zero enough time to make another shot. “If you complete your fourth year, you’ll be automatically eligible for 2022.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Derek let the ball rebound two or three times, then picked it up, tucking it between his elbow and his hip. “I think you do,” he said, honestly but carefully. “But not this year. And I think you know that. You can pull out and come back to UCLA for your fourth year; no one’s got to know about it.”

Yeah, right. _Everybody_ would know about it. There wasn’t such a thing as anonymity for any of them, there hadn’t been since they were sixteen.

“What if I don’t?” Zero asked, rubbing his hands together slowly.

“What if you don’t pull out?”

He bit at his bottom lip. “What if I don’t come back to UCLA next fall?”

Derek’s eyebrows shot up, but he made visible efforts to control his face. “That’s a… That’s a tough decision. I guess this’s not the first time you’ve thought about it.”

Zero snorted and shook his head. “Nah, that’s for sure.”

“You don’t get along with your Coach. Your best assists are graduating,” Derek summed up methodically. “If Alford is still there next year, it’s pretty much a given that he won’t change his routine and keep the freshmen on the bench, so the chances of having new faces on the actual court are slim to none.”

“But?”

His friend let his gaze follow a car passing down the street, like he was trying to find the right words. “But the new regulation starts next year. If you don’t have your NCAA visibility as a Captain, the high-schoolers will fill the Combine and you might risk getting lost among them. Completing your fourth year, it means you’re literally jumping right to the Draft without a look back for the Combine. You’re, like, the last of the old-schoolers, you’ve earned your place in the Sun and you’ve fought for it for the last three, four years. That will matter next year. That could make the difference.”

“You’re not making it easy,” Zero groaned, shoving his hands deep in his pockets.

Derek scoffed. “That’s a tough call, dude. I don’t get the point of sugar-coating it. At the end of the day it’s still pretty much a fight or die kind of situation. No biggie, of course.”

Zero huffed. Derek threw the ball and scored after a little suspense.

“What does Kinkade think about it?” Derek asked while Zero retrieved the ball.

“I haven’t told him,” he admitted. “I haven’t told anyone, for that matter.”

“I respect that,” Derek shrugged, to Zero’s surprise. “It’s okay if you wanna make up your mind on your own.”

Zero stared at the ground for a second and handed the ball to Roman. “I’ve never been really used to sharing my decisions with other people. I do it with Jude because… well, because he’s my boyfriend. But when it comes to the others…,” his voice trailed off.

“Your mom?” Derek completed helpfully, and Zero muttered a ‘yeah’.

There was a short silence and they scored a couple more times each before the conversation resumed on Zero’s side. “I never really had people to turn to before. It had its perks, to be honest. I mean, there wasn’t anybody to tell me that sucking a dick was a sin or other kinds of bullshit.”

Derek made a face, the one with the cocked eyebrow, and all of a sudden he was back to being the textbook definition of the resting bitch face. “That’s _way_ too much information,” and Zero snorted before giving him a nudge.

“Point is,” Zero huffed, “I only think about her, about them, as third tier at best. So turning to them for that kind of stuff, I don’t really see the point of it.”

Derek handed him the ball. “Who’s second?”

Zero glanced at the hoop. “You guys.”

“What a softie,” Derek cooed mockingly, and all he received as an answer was a ball he caught just in time before it knocked him right in the face.

*

“ _Kyle_? Jeez I almost didn’t recognize you,” Jude exclaimed, surprised, as he came across his childhood friend by the mailboxes. He was just coming back from Campus and had practically walked in the elevator before he suddenly realized that the pretty brunette who was retrieving her mail was a well-known face, after all.

Kyle grinned as she spun around. “I know right? I really like it.” And honest to God, she waved her _light-brown hair_ , the lights of the hallway playing on the honey highlights.

As astounded as Jude was, he still had to admit it was cute on her, but again, he wasn’t sure she would ever look ugly even with the worst choppy haircut ever. “I never thought you’d leave the blonde squad,” he teased with a nudge when they both got inside of the elevator. “What does Ted think about it?”

She shrugged, comically rolling her eyes. “He doesn’t have a type, or so he says.”

Jude snorted. “I don’t have one either.”

“You do have a thing for jocks,” Kyle pointed out unhelpfully.

“Zero isn’t a jock. He’s an athlete. That’s _different_ ,” he corrected.

“Yeah. Uh, about that… How is he doing these days?” she asked casually.

Jude groaned.

The first answer that came to his mind?

_I don’t fucking know_.

“He says he doesn’t want to talk about it. That it’s fine,” Jude eventually said. _The usual shit_ , he added to himself. 

Kyle cleared her throat when the elevator dinged on the third floor. “Good. Keep that in mind, then,” she said before she walked out.

Jude frowned. “Kyle Hart, what do you mean?”

“Just go upstairs and you’ll see,” she said innocently when the doors of the elevator rolled closed.

Jude blinked at the metallic surface in front of him, shocked. What the hell was this _again?_ He nervously fidgeted in the cramped space and almost ran out of the elevator to his front door as soon as it reached the fifth floor.

“I’m back,” Jude called out, barging in. He hoped he didn’t sound as desperate and panicked as he thought he did. He let his gaze wander around, scanning the empty kitchen and the empty living-room with a frown. “Zero?”

“’Coming,” his boyfriend’s voice echoed from the bedroom, and instantly Jude tried to keep his heartbeat down. Okay. Good, at least he was home. Good. _Good_.

He tried to act casual and kicked his shoes off in the entrance as Zero entered in the living room. “I saw Kyle downstairs, you’ll never believe w…,” Jude’s voice died down when he turned around, and for a solid minute, he could do nothing but gap at Zero.

His fading blonde color had disappeared and had been replaced by a much more natural light-brown. The sides and the back of his hair were cut short in a light fade taper, while the top was longer and wavy, combed neatly back from his face. What probably stunned him the most was the honey shades showing up here and there highlighted by a nearby lamp.

“You don’t like it?” Zero mumbled, running a hand through his hair self-consciously.

_Uh oh_.

Jude chewed at his bottom lip. “Do you, _uh_ , do you remember that time when we started dating and you said guys who wore ties were just boring assholes in disguise?” he asked after a moment, gesturing with his hand as he spoke. “And then, like, literally the day after I had to put on a suit for a stupid event my dad forced me to attend?”

Zero gave him a puzzled look. “Yeah, why?”

“Do you remember what you said when I walked out of the bathroom?”

“That apparently I had a kink for ties after all?” Zero admitted halfheartedly.

“Well apparently,” Jude said, stepping in his boyfriend’s personal space, grinning broadly, “I have a kink for darker hair too.”

Zero huffed a snort and Jude ran his fingers through his brand new haircut. Honestly? Hot as hell. It made his blue eyes stand out even more and Jude had to admit he much preferred the short hair. That’s when he was about to ask what the hell had crossed his mind that he suddenly remembered Kyle.

“Hold on a second,” Jude said, taking a step back. “Did you really plan your haircut to match with your _female best-friend?_ ”

Zero rolled his eyes and dropped himself on the couch. “I just wanted to try something new. Kyle said that it was her turn to take one for the Team.”

Jude smiled fondly as he perched himself on the armrest. He observed his boyfriend thoughtfully for a second. Zero looked a lot like his mom now. Jude fought the need to say it aloud, because the last thing he wanted was to hurt Zero and lead him to reflect on things that would never be truly easy for him.

“I hope this habit of you guys dying your hair the same dies the day she goes for Maddie’s mermaid hairstyle, Kyle keeps eyeing it with _lots_ of interest,” Jude chuckled.

Zero looked up at him with a furrowed brow. “Maddie?”

Jude frowned. “Yeah, Mad- oh. Right, you two never met. We met on the parking lot the day you left for the first Round. She used to date Kors. Long story short, he cheated on her.”

Zero seemed to be processing the new information, and just hummed in response. Jude glanced down at his boyfriend. It was one of those days where he wasn’t much in a talking mood, and that broke Jude’s heart a little more every time. He wanted his Zero back; his smirking, loud, and constantly buzzing boyfriend. And somehow, the change of haircut made it worse. Yeah, Jude liked it. He really did. But if anything, it was just more proof that things would never go back to the way they once were. It was so terribly selfish that Jude wanted to hit himself; and in that moment, he decided that he could either be an asshole about it and keep crying over his long-gone high school sweetheart, or be an understanding (young) adult who had more sensibility than the common selfish jerk.

He broke into a smug smile and slid into Zero’s lap, straddling him.

“You know what?” he asked, brushing their noses together while his boyfriend’s hands immediately settled on his hips.

A lopsided smile showed up on Zero’s face.

“They say a good haircut can’t get messy on the first day,” Jude said, nuzzling at Zero’s jawline. “Let’s see how messy I can get yours.”

*

The appointment with Dr. Andrews started off innocently. As usual she asked how he was, what he had done lately, and he had dutifully answered ‘fine’ and ‘a little basketball’. He was never really expanding much on those so it naturally drifted onto more serious matters.

“A week ago you were feeling like walking out of your apartment was too much,” Dr. Andrews reminded after he had told her he had been practicing with Derek. “What has changed?”

Since he wasn’t responding, she changed her angle. “In the things you recounted, you mentioned working out, being a part-time mechanic, going to basketball summer camps, mentoring in basketball summer camps once you started college, and various other jobs along the way; all the while being excessively devoted and committed to every basketball season since high school.”

Zero nodded in silence. She had been unusually quiet about the big reveal of his traumatic childhood, but he had been waiting ever since for something to happen — at least he was right.

She studied him for a moment. “How long has it been since you last took a step back and just did nothing?”

Zero’s eyes dropped. “I don’t know. I don’t remember,” he admitted.

“Do you miss that?”

“Not really,” Zero said. “I don’t- I don’t know how to do that? Ever since I was a kid… Being out, doing stuff, it was- it was the only way not to be home. Not to have to deal with… with shitty stuff.”

Dr. Andrews nodded. “Basketball kept you busy this whole time. How did you deal with the previous seasons ending?”

He winced. “Better? Because I had Summer Camp.”

“Except last year,” Dr. Andrews pointed out. “Your injured shoulder prevented you from attending Summer Camp. How did you deal with that? How did you deal with your breakup and Jude leaving the country?”

Zero took a moment to think about it, and squirmed in his seat. “I… Not so great,” he confessed.

“Don’t you think those two spans of time have something in common?”

He quirked a brow, confused. “No Basketball?”

She chuckled a little. “No schedule. That feeling that everything is falling apart comes from the fact that you’re not used to _not_ having a schedule. You’ve kept yourself busy all these years and you just don’t know how to handle having free-time.”

“I don’t like having free-time,” Zero replied, rolling the sleeve of his black sweater between his fingers subconsciously. He stretched out his legs as much as the coffee table allowed him to. “I don’t like doing just _nothing_. I hate that- I hate that I feel like everything is taking so much energy these days because I hate just being there and doing nothing.”

Dr. Andrews watched him thoughtfully. “Could it be because you don’t like being alone?”

Zero shrugged. “I don’t mind being alone on Campus, or in the Arena.”

“How about being alone at home?”

He pressed his lips together and his gaze dropped ever so slightly. “When I’m alone it doesn’t feel like home.”

“So you like to have people around?”

He huffed a little. “I thought I did. Now, I don’t really know why, but it makes me feel anxious. I just… I don’t know, everything is pretty fucked up these days.”

She played with her pen for a few seconds then she sought eye-contact. “It’s because people brought violence into a place you thought was safe. It’s because your teammate hurt you, so all of a sudden, your mind is confused and doesn’t know what is safe and what isn’t anymore.”

What a fucked up thing to think about. Hearing her it was like his brain had its own personality and was like a lost puppy rather than a big bad baller.

“I thought it’d stop,” Zero said quietly. “The day Jude took me in and everybody decided that I wasn’t gonna go back there, I thought it was over.”

“The fear?”

Zero nodded slightly. He didn’t know it was fear he was feeling. For many years, most of his childhood actually, he just felt like he was angry. He hadn’t realized until he broke Travis Abramson’s nose in high school after the bastard had slept with Sadie Sinclair that anger felt different. It had been a painful realization, to say the least.

Because he had thought he knew how to live with anger, but how did you live with constant fear?

“It has stopped, Zero,” Dr. Andrews said gently. “You’ve left the house. It’s difficult for you to process over this idea because your foster father held all the power for many years. But now you’ve left the house, and outside of it, you’re the one with the power.”

He cocked an eyebrow despite himself, which didn’t go unnoticed.

“You don’t look convinced,” the therapist said.

“I’m not a big believer of ‘you’ve got the power’,” he snorted. “99% of the time I just feel like I’m dealing with damage control rather than making actual decisions.”

She shrugged. “We sometimes feel like it’s damage control but that’s not always necessarily the case. It’s just because our lives happen to be in constant motion and it doesn’t pause whenever you have a decision to make. That’s probably the reason why we have so much trouble seeing the bigger picture.”

His thoughts flew to Allie. How different his life would have been if she had been able to see the bigger picture? To show it to that asshole of a social worker even?

“What are you thinking about?” Dr. Andrews asked after a minute of him keeping quiet.

“Allie. My birth-mom,” he admitted.

“You don’t talk much about her,” Dr. Andrews observed. “Even in what you wrote, there’s not much.”

“Because I don’t remember much,” Zero replied with a small shrug.

Dr. Andrews seemed to give it a thought. “What is the best thing you can remember about her?”

He tried to think about it. He really tried. But his mind was blank. He shrugged again. “Dunno. I was just a kid, it’s kinda blurry,” he mumbled, but it didn’t seem to bother the woman one bit.

“How are things going with her now?”

“It’s weird,” Zero admitted. “She’s cool. She’s nice, really. But it just feels… kinda forced. Like I’m walking into a living commercial.”

Dr. Andrews nodded slightly. “It’s not easy for someone in your position to feel like it’s perfectly fitting. It’s completely okay for you to feel otherwise. But I think you’d feel better about it if you knew for yourself where you want to stand in this relationship.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s up to you if you want to enter this relationship with your mother as an equal, an adult, or as a child. I know this line is a little blurred by the fact that your mother seems very young to you,” Dr. Andrews pointed out. “I believe the difficulty you have finding stable ground to develop this bond with her comes from the fact that you don’t know where to stand. Either way, I can help you. It’s completely up to you. You’re the one with the power.”

 


	29. Chapter 29

Being on the strong side of psychology had plenty of perks — as long as it lasted.

Zero had fought all his life to not consider himself a weak and sad victim of the circumstances, and being rewarded with an existential crisis at 20 seemed cruelly unfair to him; _especially_ because he didn’t like to give into self-indulgence. Deep down, almost like a secret wish, Zero had hoped therapy would fix that.

Well, that was definitely still yet to happen.

“You want to drop out?” Allie and Samuel said with the same voice, their eyes widening instantly.

Zero shoved his hands in his pockets and pressed his lips together. “I’m… I’m thinking about it, yeah.”

He was awkwardly fidgeting in Allie and Samuel’s kitchen early on Saturday morning, while they had their first cup of coffee. He had planned to talk to them about his plans for next year, or lack thereof, just before going off to his therapist. Most of the time, he made plans according to his chances to escape if things went in the wrong direction; years of moral and physical abuse were kinda making it hard to forget these habits.

“But you’re the team _Captain,_ you can’t drop out,” Allie said.

Zero gave her a puzzled look. “Well, if I drop out, I won’t be anymore.”

She exchanged another look, completely stunned this time, with her husband. “Zero, I know it must be hard for you, with the Combine and all…,” Samuel started diplomatically.

Zero opened his mouth and closed it, slightly offended. “This’s not just about the Combine!”

“Then what is it about? You’re only a few months away from graduating,” Allie insisted.

“I shouldn’t have come back for a third year, that’s what this is about,” Zero bit back. “I came back because I wanted to try a better year, a perfect season. I don’t give a damn about graduating; it’s never been the plan!”

“It doesn’t mean you can’t consider it now,” Samuel pointed out. “Zero, honestly I don’t know what you’re expecting from us, you’ve made it plain that you hardly care about anybody’s opinion.”

_I’m sick of being the kid with no parents_ , he almost said, but somehow, the words couldn’t get out and he didn’t try to force it.

“Basketball is such a difficult world, Zero,” Allie said carefully. “We just don’t want you to end up with nothing and regret wasting your chance.”

Zero’s eyes bulged. “My _chance_? You think a _marketing degree_ is my chance?” There was a short silence, and another sickening look between them. A cold sweat ran down his back. “You think I’m screwed.”

“No, I didn’t say that,” Allie protested, but it sounded weak and nervous. “Maybe- maybe you’re not ready for the NBA.”

Zero snorted painfully. Of course he _wasn’t_. No one was ever ready for the _NBA_ ; you just had to swallow your nerves and go for it because a goddamn shot didn’t present itself twice in a lifetime. 

“One name, _Allen_. Allen did all of his four years when everyone thought he should have stopped at three. What happened to him after that? More fucked up games, more injuries, his reputation going down in flames,” Zero counted on his fingers. “He almost didn’t get drafted because of that final year! How is that any better?”

“So what, you’re just getting drafted next month?” Samuel asked quizzically.

“I never said I’d declare for the Draft this year,” Zero countered. “I just said I was _thinking_ about dropping out because the NCAA never brought me anything good.”

“Then what are you going to do if you’re not playing for UCLA?” Allie enquired. “Maybe going back for a fourth year isn’t the best option, but what would be then?”

Zero blinked a little and rubbed the back of his neck. “Get back in shape,” he admitted, mumbling. He looked up at the couple, who was still watching him expectantly, like they were waiting for him to elaborate. “I… I’ve started taking antidepressants. The League isn’t against it, but I’m not sure they would welcome the news with a smile. I also lost too much weight in the last few years; I’ve got to figure out that shit too. The skinnier I am, the more chances I have to hurt myself pretty badly, and I can’t risk that.”

Allie and Samuel seemed to be processing all of the new information he had thrown out.

Zero took a small breath. “I’m not really _asking_ for anything right now. I’m just saying that the chances of me being able to go through a whole other year of that shit are pretty low as it is. Even if I do… I could lose everything I’ve worked for since I was a kid just because I wasn’t at my best level.” He huffed and shook his head, already retreating. “But- you know what? I don’t know why I even bothered.”

“Zero, hold on, _”_ Allie said as she followed him through the living-room. “Samuel is right, what do you want me to say? What do you want me to do?”

Zero turned around. “I don’t know! I came here because a stupid therapist, who doesn’t know shit about my life, thinks she fucking knows the secret of the fucking _universe_!” And with that he opened the door and started walking down the stoop.

“I’m trying to be a good mother to you!” Allie yelled, and all of a sudden, Zero’s pace faltered. His insides twisted so painfully he wondered how that was even possible. “For months I’ve been trying to convince myself that if I was acting a little more like all the other moms, then it would start to feel right, but it doesn’t, right?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Zero said, still not turning back.

There was a long silence, the atmosphere suddenly heavy as ever between them. He heard the soft click of the door closing behind Allie.

“Sometimes…,” he said, almost whispering, “sometimes I wish you never got me back. Before you did, I had a fucking good reason to hate you and to be mad at you. And now I have none and I feel- I feel fucking empty.”

He bit at his lip. So hard he started feeling copper on his tongue. All he was left to feel now was anger towards himself because things weren’t getting better, they never fucking were, and Allie was just trying and trying; so if it didn’t work out it could only be because of him, right? Allie’s faint footsteps grew a little closer, but still at a comfortable distance, as if she was still protecting herself.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,” she whispered. “I’ll never stop apologizing for that. I wasn’t there when you first started to read, or when you fought with your friends. I wasn’t there the first time you got into a fist fight. I wasn’t there for your first basketball game or your first heartbreak. And I… I never gave you that _horrible_ safe-sex speech because when you came back -when I _found you_ , you were all grown up. And you were- you were perfect. You still are to me.”

She paused for a moment. The neighborhood was quiet like it always was, with only the sound of Zero’s blood pounding in his ears. Everything here was quiet and soft; he couldn’t even believe he had been able to live here for several months without driving himself crazy.

“It doesn’t change the fact that I want to step up my game,” he said, because he hadn’t come here for another psychoanalysis of any kind.

“I just…,” Allie started; then she paused. “I just want you to think about it carefully.”

Zero snorted. “Yeah, right.”

Like he hadn’t already.

*

Jude had just snuggled up against Zero when his phone buzzed on his nightstand. What the hell was the problem with the _universe_? He hadn’t gotten more than two texts the whole evening, and as soon as he was cuddling with his boyfriend the world seemed to remember about him? With a soft grunt he shrugged it off, plain and simple, and slid an arm around Zero’s waist, nuzzling in his shoulder blades. The world could wait.

His breathing was slowly starting to grow quiet and even, when a second text, or notification, or whatever bomb alert that was, forced him back to the world of the living. He rolled his eyes and with an inward sigh, let go of Zero’s long-asleep body to roll onto his back and reach for his phone.

The two texts were both from an unknown number, and he frowned to himself. Jude was planning not to make a big deal out of it, mostly because he imagined it to be a wrong number, and was already thinking about discarding them before going back to be the bigger spoon for once in his damn life; that was, until he read the name Nessa in the text.

_Hold on_ , he told himself, his mind sharpening a little as he reread the first text. It was from Nessa, as it was explicitly written. A few pictures had been sent. They could all have been on a Spring Break advertisement, to be honest: lots of booze, lots of ballers; lots of girls. He recognized some faces from the Team showing up randomly; he kept flicking through the pics absent-mindedly, as he reflected on the validity of what they wanted to do. Those pics were definitely not enough to completely short-circuit any of them. But Parker was only a freshman and having Alford on his heels for the next three years or so, because of one single drunken set of pictures, could be the beginning of a good punishment for his shitty behavior towards Nessa (and Zero).

‘Could have some fun with those,’ Nessa observed in the following text.

Jude didn’t really know what to answer to that, so he just replied something about some being kinda priceless, then he powered off his phone to avoid waking himself or his boyfriend again. He curled up one last time against Zero and finally fell asleep.

He woke up the next morning to Zero smirking at him from over his shoulder.

“Hey, look who managed not to suffocate me in my sleep for once?”

Jude groaned and closed his eyes, digging his face even deeper in Zero’s back and tightening his grip around him. “Shut up.”

Zero let out a chuckle and started squirming his way out of his grip, forcing Jude to release him with another grunt. It became difficult to pretend to be asleep when Zero started poking him in the ribs, and soon the situation derailed into a _beyond unfair_ tickle fight.

“Oh my God, what’s with you this morning?” Jude protested, faking offense as he kept kicking his boyfriend away.

Just as he stopped talking, Zero easily wrapped his hands around his wrists and settled on top of him, pinning him to the mattress with his weight. “C’mon, I’m just messing with you. You’ll be all grown up in like, a _week_ ,” Zero pouted, and Jude huffed a snort that came out distorted by the big baller on top of him.

“The _real_ reason,” Jude demanded, but instead, Zero nipped at the soft skin on his neck and probably marked him for life despite his best protests.

Anyone would have been applauding the fact that everything felt like the good old times. But Jude was trying to bury this feeling as deep as possible, trying to ignore his stomach churning and his heart thrumming, trying to not even think about it. If behaving normally, like he had always behaved with Zero, not treating him like it was a big deal or like he was a piece of glass, if that was the only way to help him, well he was beyond committed to that purpose. Even if it meant denying him a kiss, because that morning he was just the adorably annoying asshole who left hickeys in all the most visible places on Jude’s body.

What a jerk.

(He loved every second of it.)

The answer to his question arrived with a delay — and impossibly muffled at that, since Zero had visibly decided that burying his face in his neck was the cause of death he wanted.

Jude frowned. “What?”

Zero sighed, sending tickles down his neck, and eventually lifted himself up on his right elbow. “You powered off your phone, genius.”

His frown intensified as he closed his eyes, and tried to digest the information as calmly as possible.

_Ah_.

Great.

_Awesome_.

“And you didn’t think about waking me up,” Jude observed with a perfectly collected voice.

Zero mustered up his best puppy dog eyes. “I wanted to have you all to myself,” he pouted and Jude rolled his eyes incredulously.

“Zero,” he said slowly. “Get your hands off me before I do something we will both regret.”

His boyfriend studied him for only a second; then he sat up on the mattress, raising both of his hands in surrender. Jude muttered a ‘thankyou’, reached for his phone, powered it on, and only then ran off to the bathroom.

By the time he reached Campus, Zero had managed to send him a dozen texts, all varying around the theme ‘being alone in bed sucks :((’. Jude replied a sarcastic ‘Knock next door, the neighbors’ daughter might be home’ that he immediately regretted, and he spent a good fifteen minutes of his first lecture trying not to freak out too much over his now-silent phone. Zero eventually replied with a ‘Tried it, no answer. Imma gonna die alone’, and Jude snorted to himself, relieved.

Like most days when he woke up late — which, to his credit, didn’t happen often —, everything felt like it was set on high speed. His lunch with Raquel started the moment they met in the parking lot to head off Campus and grab a bite at the place Kyle was working; she insisted she would get her break soon enough to join them before they leave. Not to say that he regretted agreeing to the meeting, but yeah, he _did_ kind of regret it, because they hadn't even left the parking lot before Raquel started adamantly complaining that they hardly did anything together these days. It didn't improve when Kyle did join them and Jude realized he had just well and truly fallen into a trap.

“Come on,” Kyle insisted. “If you're not partying in college, when exactly do you plan to do that?”

“In the fancy law firm he'll work for, maybe,” Raquel snickered, and Jude glared at her.

He huffed a sigh. “And where do you plan on dragging me this time?”

“A couple of friends from my med classes are throwing a party at a frat house,” she replied with a small shrug.

“I’m definitely going,” Kyle said between two bites. “Maybe you could convince Zero to tag along.”

Jude quirked a brow. “I could try,” he said slowly.

_It’s not like I’ve got better things to do in the evenings_ , he added sarcastically to himself.

The party was supposed to take place in three days, on Friday night. That left him enough time to come up with a reasonable excuse if he really wasn’t feeling it, and it was with these comforting thoughts in mind that he headed back to Campus.

Not once did he think about the pictures Nessa had sent to him the night before, and looking back, it had probably to do with the fact that Zero was behaving a little more like his old self. Actually, it wasn’t until the day after that he was reminded of it, when he stumbled on the girl and a visibly seething Gavin Parker down the hallway.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” Jude asked carefully.

Parker withdrew from Nessa’s personal space and glared back at Jude. In complete honesty, he wasn’t even sure the guy knew he was Zero’s boyfriend. It wasn’t like Zero and he were parading around and some people were just _that_ oblivious.

“Not your fucking business,” the baller growled, and with one last threatening look at his ex-girlfriend, he walked away, his feet hammering the ground.

As soon as he left their surroundings, Nessa seemed to completely deflate and she let go of her purse, which fell to her feet with a soft thud.

“You okay?” Jude enquired with a raised eyebrow. “What did he want?”

“Probably to intimidate me,” she muttered with a sigh. “He hasn’t stopped sending me stuff since this morning; I knew it was just a matter of time. The pics had their effect, at least.”

Jude was taken aback. “What? You mean- You sent them already?”

She shrugged and slid her watch higher on her arm before rubbing the inside of her wrist under Jude’s gaze. “I wasn’t going to wait till Christmas. Plus, with those I found with Kitty after that, I just couldn’t wait.”

“Oh,” Jude said, furrowing his brow. “Uh, and what happened so far?”

“You haven’t heard?” she snorted. “He’s almost on the way to get kicked out of the program. Five or six players were called at 7:30AM yesterday and all I know is that Alford was _pissed_. I don’t know about Ryder, though.”

Jude hummed. “That’s fine. It wasn’t really the idea of the century anyway.” There was a short silence. “You should, er, you should probably be careful with him now. Don’t wait for something bad to happen.”

She made a face. “Next time, I swear I’ll kick him in the balls.”

*

Zero declined coming to the frat party, obviously.

Jude left around 11pm simply because he had tried convincing him some more — and also the other way around, Zero trying to make a counterpoint with all he had, starting with his mouth. Honestly, he was _so close_ to getting him to stay that he thought it was a done deal, until Jude reconnected with the stupid reality and caught up with the hundred texts from Raquel and Kyle hassling him for supposedly chickening out. And stupidly, Jude fell for it.

He tried to explain to Zero that it was a matter of defending his reputation, but his boyfriend simply replied with an eye-roll and a slightly annoyed ‘don’t come crying because you can’t get up tomorrow morning’. And then, with a quick goodbye kiss, he left. Zero found himself alone watching some shitty rerun of a comedy show, and half an hour after Jude took off, took a shower and went to bed.

Alone. Mildly gloomy, but he could manage.

Dr. Andrews had decided to teach him a few tricks to feel more at peace whenever he was on his own in order to fight back any hypothetical anxiety crisis.

“When you’re panicking, your body and your mind block themselves,” she had explained. “All you need to do is to take the time to identify where you are or what is causing you pain.”

She had said that for him, who was suffering from anxiety related to the house he had grown up in, the easiest way to get back to reality was to say his current address aloud, or write it down, or even think about it if that was enough.

(Zero decided he wouldn’t be caught dead trying.)

He didn’t know exactly when he fell asleep, but he knew that he spent quite a significant amount of time tossing back and forth in his bed, after his boyfriend texted him at _four in the goddam morning_ to tell him (with fewer words, of course) that he’d sleep over at Raquel’s after all — and most importantly, that he’d sober up there. For a moment, he was far too incredulous to reply; what was even the _point_ of going back to the _same building_ if not to take the stupid _elevator_ and literally _come home_? But after reading and rereading the text, the ‘sober up’ part had him definitely sulking.

So, apparently, his boyfriend was so _drunk_ that he had deemed it more reasonable to just sleep somewhere else. To come back the next morning, probably with that stupid, _stupid_ puppy look of his; acting all _sorry_ and _miserable_ , and Zero wouldn’t have any other choice but to hug him and tell him he loved him because he was _stupidly in love,_ so how could he seriously get mad at him anyway?

It didn’t mean he hasn’t firmly decided to make his point though, and that started with the most sarcastic answer he could possibly gather at the moment: ‘ _Great.’_ After that he half-expected Jude to elaborate clumsily, but nothing came, and Zero decided that now he definitely had a good reason for pouting. It didn’t help that he could neither help his annoyance at the thought of his dead-drunk boyfriend or his guilt to react this way after everything he had put Jude through lately. In any case, those mopey thoughts were the ones to plunge over him as soon as he woke up the next morning, and he grumpily processed over the incredibly attractive idea to get up, drag his ass two floors downstairs and wake up, with the maximum amount of noises possible, at least three people with a hangover.

Until he barely escaped a heart attack, that is.

Because it was 9, _9…AM,_ and all of a sudden, the doorbell was ringing at the front door, obscenely loud in the silent apartment. It kept ringing, then the person behind the door had the nerve to start knocking; by the time Zero threw a shirt on with his boxers and got up, he was already coming up with various murderous glares for whoever was behind that stupid door.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Zero growled immediately, not even bothering to hide his irritation at the sight of his _oh-so-beloved_ former roommate. “Can’t you just limit yourself to the third floor?”

Ted didn’t reply at first, and made his keys jingle a little in his hands. His clothes were neat but he had the face of someone who hadn’t gotten much sleep, if he had gotten any. “Yeah look, I need you to get dressed and come with me.”

Zero scoffed. The day was just getting better and better, and it was barely nine in the fucking morning. “You’ve had two years to kill me in my sleep, I’m not gonna let you abandon me in the desert now.”

Ted gave him a look and adjusted his glasses on his nose, scowling. “I’m not joking, dumbass. Something happened last night… with Kinkade.”

Zero let go of the asshole defensive stance and frowned, still holding the door open. “What do you mean?”

Ted hesitated for a split-second. “He ended up in the ER.”

Zero stared at him, taken aback, but it soon turned into boiling anger. “In the ER?! How fucking _much_ did he drink this _fucking_ time?”

That was it. He was officially never letting him go to a goddam party _ever_ again.

“I don’t know,” Ted said. “The girls just said he kept throwing up and Raquel said she didn’t want him to get dehydrated.”

“Why didn’t he call me?” Zero growled, pissed.

He stepped back into the flat to get dressed and Ted followed him inside, shutting the door behind him.

“Look, I don’t know, I didn’t hold his hand all night long,” Ted retorted, which earned him a murderous glare from Zero before he got in his bedroom.

Objectively he knew he was very much _not_ the best to judge anybody who would end up in the ER because of alcohol but- Zero stopped halfway through bitterly putting on a pair of sweatpants, his stomach dropping. _Holy fucking fuck_ ,  he was _so_ never going to let Jude have another fucking chance to drink himself into oblivion.

“Thank you for coming, but I’ll manage to get myself there,” Zero groaned as he picked up his car keys, once fully dressed.

“Don’t be an ass. I’m not the mailman, I came all the way here to fetch you,” Ted deadpanned.

Zero’s keys dropped back into the bowl at the entrance before he actually made up his mind, but that was beside the point. Turned out, he _could_ survive a ten-minute trip to the fucking hospital without murdering him, mostly because Zero kept sulking and no one said anything the whole time. When they got there and Ted kept following him inside, however, Zero was mildly tempted to tell him to fuck off. It wasn’t until Ted slipped him the number of Jude’s room before he reached the nurses’ station that Zero started smelling something really fishy, but Ted simply said Kyle had texted him the number. He should have known it was bullshit — he was feeling it, deep down — before they reached the right hall, only to see Raquel’s eyes widening like saucers as she spotted them.

“I-I’ll call you back,” she stuttered quickly to the person she was talking to on the phone, before walking to them. “Benson, what the hell did you do?”

Ted looked barely fazed by the cold greeting. “What actual people _do_ once they’re over 16,” he bit back.

“Oh please, like you’re the only responsible one?” Raquel retorted, whisper-screaming as two nurses walked past them.

Zero was observing them, feeling his irritation skyrocketing almost as much as his nervousness. “I give you exactly three seconds to tell me what the fuck is going on,” he articulated slowly.

Ted and Raquel exchanged a look, and just as she was opening her mouth to answer, Zero decided he didn’t fucking care. He swung the door open, probably louder than he should have. Kyle jumped on the spot in the armchair next to the bed, but in the bed Jude barely moved at all.

His hair was combed in a weird way, and Zero’s eyes immediately flew to the IV in his arm without a single care for whatever Kyle was saying.

Okay.

No big deal.

It was to keep him hydrated, he reminded himself. Jude was rolled onto his side, hugging himself with his free arm. He was fine. He looked fine… Mostly.

Zero breathed out and felt his anger evaporate a little. His _fucking_ Jude, huh?

He still wanted to kill him, but a little less as he hovered closer.

“Babe? You okay?” he asked quietly as he brushed his cheek.

Jude let out a faint, raspy grunt as he reacted to the small touch, moving just a little. After a few seconds, his eyes fluttered open sluggishly and Zero’s tight smile disappeared for good as his stomach dropped for like the millionth time this goddam morning. He stared, stupefied, at Jude’s wide blown pupils for a second, then he stood up and sharply turned around toward the entrance of the room, where Kyle, Ted and Raquel were talking among themselves.

“Why the hell is my boyfriend fucking _high_?” he demanded harshly.


	30. Chapter 30

“What do you fucking mean by ‘he did it on purpose’?” Zero blurted out.

He had really tried to give them enough time to explain themselves before losing what little patience he had left. But in the course of the last few minutes, listening to Raquel, Kyle and Ted constantly bickering over what the official version was, when none of theirs was the same, had seriously become a stretch that Zero wasn’t ready for. All he had gathered so far was that Jude had started behaving really weird at one point, and when they realized he might have taken a wrong cup, they had tried to make him vomit, but apparently whatever was wrong with that cup had already entered his system.

“That’s the part that is a little bit unclear,” Raquel muttered carefully.

“I mean, we aren’t even sure what he actually said,” Kyle added quickly. “For all we know he was already not himself and we could totally have misheard.”

“Sure, because there are so many ways to explain ‘that’s how you do real payback’,” Ted fired back sarcastically from the wall he was leaning against with his arms folded.

“You’re not helping,” Kyle glared at her boyfriend.

“Helping what?” Ted retorted. “Kyle we aren’t kids anymore!”

“I know that!... I just wanted to protect you!” she whisper-screamed as she turned to Zero. “I just wanted to save you the worry. We had no idea it would take so long for him to wake up!”

“I was just about to come downstairs, Kyle!” Zero exploded. “When Ted arrived I was just about to storm into _your_ place! It wouldn’t have saved me any kind of fucking worry not to know where my boyfriend was!”

Kyle seemed dejected and frankly on the verge of crying, which Zero hadn’t seen her do in _years_ , but he hardly cared in that moment. The last text he had received from Jude was at four. So at best, _at best_ , Jude had been out for _six goddamn hours_. Something bugged him all of a sudden.

“He didn’t send me the text, did he?” he asked slowly.

There was a short, awkward silence.

“No. I did,” Raquel admitted. “I just wanted to buy some time to make sure he was okay.”

“You shouldn’t have dragged him there to begin with,” Zero snapped.

“That’s not fair,” she protested. “Jude needs to loosen up every once in a while, we just couldn’t imagine that this would happen.”

Zero glared at her and eventually turned to Jude. His boyfriend was still pretty much out of it, and despite what the golden trio had told him, he went on a quest to find a nurse to give him some _real_ answers to his situation. The one he managed to find reassured him that it would be okay, and that the only risk for Jude at this point was to be dehydrated.

“We see a lot of similar cases, don’t worry,” she told him with a small wave, and Zero wanted to argue that Jude wasn’t remotely close to anyone on this fucking planet, but he bit his tongue and went back to his boyfriend’s room instead.

Kyle and Ted had already left — or rather, Ted had dragged Kyle out of the place —, and Zero pretty much threw Raquel out. The fact that she didn’t argue much gave him the certainty that he was right to be pissed.

Derek sent him a text about an hour later.

_‘Really? You two can’t just attend a single frat party without ending up in the ER?’_

It sounded almost mean, but Zero knew better. Sarcasm and snarkiness were Roman’s way of dealing with bad news.

‘ _I wanna kill them_ ,’ Zero fired back.

_‘Who?’_

_‘Idk. Idc. Everyone.’_

It wasn’t before noon that Jude started emerging.

It looked painful, in complete honesty; and for a few moments he forgot everything about how pissed he was at his friends and focused entirely on the fact that his boyfriend would never look good in a hospital room. (And he may, or may not, have thanked God, for just a few seconds, for making him fall in love with a human being deprived of a uterus, because right now he wasn’t sure he could possibly go through seven hours of the love of his life being torn apart by a supposedly fucking miracle of life.)

“How do you feel?” Zero asked after a couple minutes of Jude trying to stare at the ceiling without having to shut his eyes closed right away.

“Awful,” Jude croaked out.

Zero dragged the chair closer to the bed. “It’s gonna be fine.”

That seemed to disturb Jude (or the hemisphere of his brain that was still working), and he looked around a little, blinking hard. “What happened?” he muttered, words half-eaten.

Zero groaned. “You got drugged.” _And I’m probably going to jail if I find who did it,_ he added to himself.

“I don’t get it,” Jude said faintly, and when he tried to rub his eyes with his hand, he literally missed his own face twice. It’s about then that Zero decided it was best not to have a real conversation right now, and he was proven right when Jude fell asleep again five minutes later.

He took the opportunity to call Derek.

“I want to kill everyone,” Zero said as a preamble as soon as his friend picked up.

“C’mon. You know the medicos. They are always trying weird stuff on people,” Derek groaned. “How’s Kinkade?”

“Still out, pretty much.”

Derek sighed. “Okay, look, what the girls did was shitty but you know they probably really wanted to make sure he was okay before telling you.”

“And what if he hadn’t been okay?” Zero protested.

“In case you don’t remember, _I’ve been_ in their shoes,” Derek snapped. “No one ever gives you instructions for this. And even if they had, you wouldn’t remember any of it in a moment like this because all you can think about is how fucking messed up this is.”

Zero leaned against the wall, sulking. “Did they tell you the part where apparently _my boyfriend_ was freaking aware of what he was doing _at the moment he was doing it_?”

“They may have mentioned it.”

“Jude wouldn’t do that,” Zero said right away.

“Really?”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not saying he did it,” Derek said carefully. “I’m just saying that we’re talking about a gay guy who thought about pretending to be his best-friend’s baby’s daddy back when he was 17. I know you’ve got that _huge_ tendency to think he’s all flowers and sunshine and to put him on a pedestal 99% of the time, but he isn’t the last one to make shitty decisions.”

“That’s different,” Zero retorted bitterly.

“How is that different?”

“Because he knows better!”

“Not when it comes to you, dummy,” Derek said slowly, and Zero totally _heard_ the eye-roll.

“Okay, what if he did it. What’s the point?” Zero insisted. “How on Earth is that _payback_?”

There was a long silence that dragged for at least thirty seconds.

“Zero, buddy,” Derek said, serious as ever, just as Zero was about to call him out. “You remember that time we hung out with your teammates? Just you, me, Molina, and Rojes?”

Zero frowned, trying to remember it. He vaguely recalled a pizza night, with beers and a dorm room. It was around Christmas, maybe. “What about it? It’s been three years, honestly.”

“The guys talked about hazing, their hazing.”

Something seemed to click in Zero’s mind.

He recalled now.

It was the full swing of the little pills back then. Everyone was drugging everybody for free. The rookies of Nando and Molina’s year had it bad with their upperclassmen and DiAnthony had been so sick that the hierarchy had heard about it and started sticking their noses in the Team’s business. Everybody had agreed to take a step back and to act like nothing happened if the players promised to behave.

“Jude must know about that,” Zero said quietly.

“He does?”

“I don’t know how he found out, I don’t remember telling him- but I don’t see how else that would be payback.”

There was another long silence at the end of the line. “Zero, buddy,” Derek said again. “Never do anything wrong to him. He’d rip your balls off.”

*

It was horrible.

At this moment, Jude wasn’t even sure he was exaggerating, no matter that he had already known a heart attack in the twenty years he had lived on this planet. He couldn’t even pinpoint what was hurting the most because everything was spinning, and constantly felt like he was about to choke on something.

If he stopped focusing so much on breathing, would it actually _stop_? Right now he could process only one thing at the time and breathing seemed so damn exhausting.

He also felt like whining…a lot. Every time he would roll over, or move, or breathe, really. He didn’t actually do it as much as he wanted because his throat was burning so bad it filtered out most of the sounds he was trying to make. It was already the afternoon when he finally was able to sit up and stopped shaking like a junkie. His pupils had started to get back to their normal size, but Zero still looked like he was going to break something.

“I don’t remember anything at all,” Jude mumbled as Zero told him, for the second or third time apparently, what had happened.

Usually when he got wasted he could at least remember the beginning of the party. But now everything was missing from that night. He didn’t even remember leaving the flat to go there or the trip to the party, or anything.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Jude asked again with a small voice.

He wanted to reach out for Zero’s hand, but his hand-eye coordination sucked pretty bad at the moment, the last thing he wanted was to send the wrong message if he was reaching for his crotch instead of his hand by mistake.

“Aside from the fact that we are both here, you mean?” Zero snorted sarcastically.

He must have given him one hell of a puppy look because Zero suddenly sighed and fully turned to him from the edge of the bed where he was sitting. “The girls say that you… you did that to get back at them, at the Team. Could it be true?”

Jude stared at him for a moment, trying to keep his eyes focused on Zero’s blue gaze. The more he was staring into the distance, the more the world was tempted to start spinning. He lifted himself up a little.

“I don’t… I don’t remember,” he said quietly.

Zero hummed and looked somewhere else. Jude swallowed thickly.

“I mean, it’s… It’s been true for the past few days at least. Yeah, for- for the past few days I really wanted that,” he admitted, tripping over the words.

Zero’s eyes snapped back to him. “Why would you do that?” Since Jude wasn’t answering, he kept talking. “Why on Earth would you do that, Jude? It’s not some sick TV show, it’s fucking reality! You don’t walk around trying to frame people!”

Jude let out a faint whine as a hundred hammers started slamming inside of his head all at once. His eyes fluttered open again and he really felt like throwing up, right the fuck now. Could throwing up an organ be a thing? He really felt like it was. Something was clawing its way up his throat, there wasn’t any other possibility.

“L-Look,” he tried, but his voice sounded weaker and weaker and he hated that. He wanted to make his point and to have this conversation, but now he was sick as ever and couldn’t even defend his own fucking self. “I know all of that. I just- It’s not fair, and I know life isn’t but-”

“Of course it’s not fair!” Zero exclaimed. “But what’s the other option?!”

Jude’s stomach twisted in a painful way all of the sudden. “I don’t-”

But Zero was hardly listening. “What if something bad had happened to you, you moron?! You know how Raquel and Kyle would feel? How Lionel and basically _everyone_ would feel?!”

“I’m sorry,” Jude tried with difficulty.

“No you’re not sorry!” Zero yelled, and before Jude could even see it coming, he just punched him in the shoulder. “You’re a freaking asshole!”

Another punch and Jude huffed a grunt of protest. Zero kept punching his shoulder but it wasn’t really hurting. Which came as a bit of a surprise because really, a big baller like him with so little strength in his fists?

Oh. _Right_.

His body was still feeling a little strange and numb from the drugs.

“You’re such a freaking, _freaking asshole_ who doesn’t even think fucking _twice_!” Zero shouted again, and suddenly he paused, and Jude lost track of when it happened exactly, since he kept missing a few seconds here and there, but Zero had his arms wrapped around him.

 _Oh. We’re hugging now,_ he thought, a little bit lost at how wonderfully fast his boyfriend’s emotions could just come and go.

Jude already had so much trouble keeping his emotions in check, let alone his body, that he couldn’t really do everything at the same time, so when his stomach eventually gave out, he didn’t have the time to warn Zero, or tell him anything, or even keep breathing for that matter; he just managed to turn his face away from Zero before he threw up...everywhere. 

*

This day would never end, Zero thought tiredly as he got out of the bathroom, his hair still damp from the shower. He padded to the front door barefoot, a clean shirt he hadn’t put on yet hanging from his hand.

“What do you want?” he groaned, swinging the door open.

Except that it was neither Kyle nor Raquel behind the door as he expected.

“Uh, sorry?” Nando huffed awkwardly. “I just, um… sorry it’s probably a bad time.”

Zero winced. “Sorry I thought you were someone else.”

“Oh. Okay,” Nando cleared his throat. “You’re a brunette now?”

Zero frowned in confusion then his hand automatically reached his hair and he ran his fingers through it. “Yeah. It’s been a couple of days. What do you want?”

Nando shoved his hands in his pockets, balancing himself back on his heels. “I was at the medicos’ party last night. I just wanted to, you know. See how things were going and stuff.”

“It’s fine. Well, I guess…,” Zero huffed, shaking his head. “Actually, I was just hitting the shower before going back there.”

For the record, he knew that Jude had tried not to throw up on him, but his coordination was really close to zero at this point (no pun intended), so the fact that he tried didn’t mean he _succeeded_. And Zero should probably have avoided punching him in the first place, so he was really not the one to get all pissy about it.

“How come? They’re keeping him?” Nando frowned.

“Just for the night,” Zero waved. “It’s not really standard procedure but Jude has some seriously powerful family so they didn’t want to risk a lawsuit I guess.”

Nando hummed.

“Was that all?” Zero drawled, gesturing with his shirt.

His teammate — or former teammate, he didn’t know anymore — took one of his hands out of his pockets and rubbed the back of his neck. “I talked to the Director of Athletics. I… I literally just walked out of his office.”

“On a _Saturday_?” Zero asked, furrowing his brow.

“Yep. Apparently there was an opportunity for that. Anyway, I talked to him and you should probably expect to receive a request for a meeting first thing Monday morning, if not earlier.”

“What? Why?”

Nando sighed. “Look, I know what your boyfriend wanted to do. It’s a little on me, because I was at another party with the guys, then they followed me to the medicos’, and if I had told them to back off, like Kitty had told me to, because of Nessa, well he probably wouldn’t have had this idea in the first place.”

Zero groaned. “It’s not your fault, he was totally wasted and he’s been a little on edge because of me.”

“Yeah, guess you can say that,” Nando snorted. “Point is I don’t like the idea of framing people for something they didn’t do. That’s a shitty attitude. But the new kids on the Team, with Parker and Crawford and all the others…” He shook his head. “I think they really could be just as shitty next year. Something’s got to change in this team.”

“Kitty told you to get back at them for Nessa?”

Nando cleared his throat. “That’s a possibility.”

Zero huffed, shaking his head.

“I told the DA that the Team had been messing around again lately. I also said that your boyfriend had ended up in the ER last night and well, if he made a connection between those two events, that’s not on me, right?,” Nando shrugged.

“Oh. I see,” Zero mumbled. “I appreciate it.”

“See you around?” Nando offered.

Zero nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”

With a wave, Nando left the doorway and Zero barely waited for him to enter the elevator before he slammed the door and ran to his phone on the countertop to check on his emails.

The last one had arrived fifteen minutes before, and it was from none other than Dan Guerrero: The Director of Athletics.

And Zero knew instantly that something big was coming.

*

Okay, so here was the thing, Jude didn’t like to be the one staying in bed while his boyfriend nursed him back to health; especially not when he was the one who had screwed up so bad that he had put himself in this position in the first place. It reminded him a little too much of their senior year of high school. They had gotten back from the hospital about an hour ago and all Jude had the strength to do was to drink some water and go to sleep. Even stripping down to his underwear was more than he could muster, and Zero took pity on him after he almost broke his neck trying to get rid of his sweatpants.

“Do you need anything?” Zero asked him from the doorframe of their bedroom after Jude had crawled under the covers.

“My big spoon,” Jude said honestly, burying his face into his pillow.

He knew Zero was pissed at him. It shouldn’t have been so easy to feel guilty about something he didn’t remember, but the main problem was that he couldn’t deny it sounded a little bit like him. Or rather, _drunken_ him. So he just hoped he wouldn’t stay mad at him forever.

Zero snorted and padded in the bedroom, kicking off his shoes before climbing up the foot of the bed. He wrapped an arm around Jude’s waist after plopping down next to him, pulling him closer until his back was pressed to his chest, and they remained silent for a moment. Jude’s eyes still felt like they were melting every time the light was on, so being in the dark was literally the best treat he could wish for at the moment.

“I’m dropping out,” Zero whispered after a while. “I’m not returning next fall.”

Jude stilled a second or two, then shifted in his arms, and automatically turned his head towards him even though it was dark as hell. “Are you serious?” he asked faintly.

“As I’ve never been before,” Zero replied. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. But I just don’t want to go through one more year of all of that. Frat parties, shitty people, crappy team… College isn’t really my cup of tea and… Well, if it wasn’t for basketball I guess I wouldn’t have gone there at all.”

Jude’s heartbeat picked up. They were supposed to do this together. They were supposed to go through college together. _He’s not happy,_ a voice reminded. His boyfriend was at war with literally anybody and the only thing that a fourth year could bring was more disappointments and potentially Zero completely turning his back on basketball; by far the scariest prospect.

“Makes sense,” Jude whispered, trying to sound casual. “You could use some time off.”

He rested his head back on his pillow.

Zero pressed a kiss in his neck. “And I could use a swimming coach to get back in shape.”

Jude snorted softly. “You asked for it,” he said drowsily.

He was starting to fall asleep when Zero tightened his grip around him a little. “Thank you… For not saying I’m making the worst mistake of my whole life.”

Jude reached out for Zero’s hand, entwining their fingers, and fell blissfully asleep in a world that wasn’t spinning, where his head wasn’t hurting, and where his eyes weren’t melting.

Sunday was gone before Jude had the time to realize it; and Zero announced to him, between two spoons of cereal and just before leaving on Monday morning, that he was supposed to meet with various members of the Athletics Committee that very morning.

“Why did they ask you to come?” Jude asked, confused.

“Nando said it’s because I’m the Captain so they might ask about some stuff regarding the Team,” Zero said, before patting his cheek softly. “Hey, you do look better.”

“I’ll hold onto that,” Jude snorted as he scooted around on his stool to follow him with his eyes.

He felt strangely lonely in the silent flat after his boyfriend left, but it wasn’t that bad given that he still felt like his brain was working at a snail’s pace. He found enough courage to drag himself into the shower and to dress, and was planning on opening his laptop to refresh his memories of last Friday’s lectures when Zero came back, less than two hours after leaving.

“Oh, hi there,” Jude said, cocking an eyebrow as Zero dropped himself next to him on the couch. “That was a short meeting.”

Zero rubbed his face with his hands. “That was the weirdest shit ever.”

Jude crossed his legs and closed his laptop. “What was it about?”

Zero rested his back against the cushions of the couch. “Uh, basically, they asked me a bunch of questions, what it was like to be a part of the Team, what was the atmosphere like… They really made it sound like they cared about all the shit that happened this year.”

Jude frowned a little. “So that’s it? That’s why they wanted to see you in person? I mean, I know what it’s like to fall for this,” he said, gesturing at Zero’s whole person, “but you’re not auditioning for the Supreme Court, an email could have been just as good.”

Zero shook his head, not even picking up on Jude’s lame attempt at humor. “They’re cleaning the house. They fired Alford.”

 


	31. Chapter 31

It wasn’t just Alford.

Zero found out about it later the same day.

To begin with, the Coach hadn’t been _fired_ , but politely asked to resign in order to avoid any extra public exposure. It wouldn’t take effect until next fall, but surely the news would leak any day now and they’d start scouting for another coach in no time — assuming they hadn't already. It was easier to get rid of someone for some kind of professional misconduct than just because he had been screwing up with the school’s basketball team for the last ten years or so.

Of course Zero knew it had very little to do with what they claimed to be the Coach’s main mistake (the ‘locker room situation’ as they kept calling it). The Bruins hadn’t made it into the Final Four in _forever_ , and this year could have well and truly brought the spark that had missed for so long, if only people had done their job and not just turned a blind eye to what was going on behind the scenes. The fact that he had to show up for the meeting wasn’t because he was the Team Captain, or even the victim. It was only because they were afraid he’d request a transfer, which Nando had more or less implied in order to speed things along.

Zero wouldn’t be caught shedding a tear; no matter how heartfelt or desperate the man’s speech was. Alford had never given two shits about him, and the Assistant-Coaches even less so. Morrison, who had only been there out of personal interest, would leave the Campus as well next fall, for the same reasons as Alford. Brighi had apparently gotten away with a slap on the wrist, mostly because they considered how well he had handled the situation. Zero wanted to say that it wasn’t worth it, but everyone kept telling him it should have happened earlier, so he let himself believe it was right. But he had to pretend he hadn’t come to the meeting with the intention of telling people he was quitting; there would be other days to do that anyway.

The good news? Parker was getting kicked out of the program, among other consequences for assaulting Nessa, which Zero found out about because he crossed paths with her before leaving Campus. It was a mystery how fast news could just travel, but Zero had learned not to underestimate the underground communication system established by the girlfriends.

“I wanted to show up at the hospital for your boyfriend but I thought it’d be weird,” Nessa confessed.

“Not completely wrong,” Zero admitted. “I get the feeling that the whole Campus was at this damn party except me,” he added in a grumble.

Nessa winced. “Jude and I have been hanging out here and there for the past few weeks. We’ve got this friend in common, Maddie, so at times-”

Zero snorted. “You know, I’m almost starting to think this one is, like, an imaginary friend or something because I’ve never had real proof that she exists.”

Nessa rolled her eyes and nudged him. “Is it too late to apologize for dragging you and Jude into my mess? I shouldn’t have pushed him to get revenge on them, that wasn’t really smart.”

Zero frowned and Nessa looked at an invisible spot in the distance. So there was the missing piece... Nessa and Jude. That was the thing he hadn’t fully understood yet; the reason why it had been so easy for Jude to do something so stupid. In a way it made sense now.

“What’s done is done,” Zero huffed, shoving his hands in his pockets. Not that he wouldn’t have liked to yell at her for being so stupid and for having totally flipped over his boyfriend though. “I’d rather you two avoid plotting the downfall of someone in the near future to be honest. He’s a big boy, he can be obstinately stubborn at times, but I love him, so…”

His eyes snapped up to Nessa and he winced to himself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“What? Rub it in my face?” Nessa asked, cocking an eyebrow, and then she snickered. “It’s fine. I’ll get over you. Jude’s great. You’re right to fight for him,” she said as she walked away backwards before disappearing between the cars in the parking lot.

Zero had never realized it was actually fighting, but maybe that was true, after all.

*

Zero woke up at 7 a.m. and internally started to debate whether it was too early to wake up his boyfriend to wish him happy birthday or if it’d pass as ‘annoyingly cute’. Jude had his first class in the afternoon, he should probably wait. Thing was, now that he was awake, he wouldn’t stop tossing and turning and that would wake up Jude anyway... _Unless_ he got up, and did something cute and sweet, like making pancakes. He knew _how_ to make pancakes. Just like he knew how to pilot a plane or to play tennis, he just never actually did it ‘in practice’. He glanced at Jude, feeling a spark of excitement running through his skin. He didn’t like his own birthday but he liked others’ so much it was ridiculous.

_Screw it_.

He reached out for Jude, who was hugging his pillow, and started pressing kisses onto his naked shoulder, travelling his lips up his neck. Jude let out a faint grunt when Zero slid a hand under the sheets, trailing his fingers around his waist and his spine, keeping it reasonably high — his boyfriend was one of those people who didn’t like to wake up to awkward stuff.

Jude sighed in his sleep and rolled over, turning his back to him, but Zero wasn’t one to be defeated, so he spooned him, plastering his body behind Jude’s and letting his hand stroke softly at his sides.

“Zero,” Jude groaned, voice rough with sleep. “It’s 7.”

Zero grinned. “I know.”

“’s my birthday. ‘wanna sleep.”

“Sleep then.”

“You’re half-fucking me already.”

“It’s just half, we’re good.”

Jude groaned again and wriggled between his arms. Zero chuckled and pressed another kiss to Jude’s shoulder before he backed off.

“You’re _leaving_?” Jude aske in disbelief, as Zero pushed the sheets away and started getting up.

“Yeah, why?” Zero responded innocently.

Jude groaned, then shuffled in the bed behind him, while Zero was reaching for his discarded boxers, slow enough to give Jude the time to wrap an arm around his waist and drag him back onto the mattress.

“I know what you’re doing,” Jude grumbled.

Zero chuckled and caressed his arm. “Happy birthday,” he said, nuzzling at his temple.

“Thank you. Now sleep.”

Zero dragged his fingers across his boyfriend’s chest. “Really?”

“Just shut up.”

“Make me,” Zero retorted, feeling daring.

This was something that Zero had always loved about Jude, he could never really refuse a good fight. Being sleepy and slightly grumpy was apparently not something that could counter his genetic predispositions to challenge. Jude surged forward and claimed his mouth before Zero even had time to react, muffling his laugh and turning it into a soft, appreciative groan.

Jude let go of his lips, leaving trails of kisses along his jawline, only stopping when Zero’s grip loosened around him and that his arms fell to his own sides.

“What?” Jude asked, a little confused.

Zero bit at his bottom lip and glanced up at Jude. “I thought I could maybe- you know. Let you handle this one.”

“Let me handle this one,” Jude repeated slowly, brow furrowing as he leaned back and straddled him. “I swear if you woke up just to do the starfish-”

“I’ll never do the starfish,” Zero retorted, mildly offended, then he followed him up into a sitting position, clearing his throat. “It’s just that- This whole… _control thing_ in bed… I figured I should- you know, drop it more often. I don’t like that you’re the one who has to say that it’s not a real bother.”

Jude let out a small chuckle. “Because it’s not?”

Zero rolled his eyes. “Point is, I know I don’t like losing control, that’s a fact,” he admitted, before his hands settled on Jude’s hips and his lips ghosted over his collarbones. “But also, the thought of you being in control is freaking hot, so….”

Jude ducked his head into Zero’s neck, travelling his mouth below his ear. “What took you so long to figure that out?” he asked teasingly, his voice making Zero shiver softly against his chest.

“You would have out-hotted me from the beginning,” Zero complained, slightly throwing his head back, just enough for Jude to be able to let his mouth ghost over his neck and his throat.

“We are a couple of hotties.”

Zero laughed and reached for a kiss, stroking up Jude’s spine slowly. “You’re in charge, birthday boy.”

“Okay, fine. I want to do it like this,” Jude said, rolling his hips cheekily with a cocky smirk that was honestly to die for.

There was a short silence, as Zero looked up at him, then nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he said, trying to sound casual. “Anything you want.”

“Oh. Really?” Jude asked, obviously surprised, and Zero lifted an eyebrow.

The cocky smirk on Jude’s face had vanished in a blink, and he looked a little unsure. His hands curled around Zero’s shoulders, and he pressed his lips together awkwardly. It wasn’t difficult to see the wheels turning in his head, so Zero cupped his cheeks softly. “Anything you want, really,” he whispered gently, peppering his face with kisses before claiming his mouth.

He was about to add that it was _just_ sex, but he wasn’t sure Jude would have appreciated it.

His boyfriend relaxed into the embrace, humming softly as their tongues tangled together and as Zero’s hand combed through his hair. If his boyfriend wanted to ride him, well, why not? How bad could something in bed with Jude be? They kept making out for a moment, rebuilding the tension that had started to fade before, until everything became blurry and hot again; until their muscles started trembling and their bodies shivering in expectation. Zero didn’t know if it had happened in a matter of seconds or several long minutes, but it hardly mattered to him.

“I want you so freaking bad,” Zero breathed between heated kisses, his hands travelling up Jude’s back and his mouth wandering on his neck, mouthing and biting at the skin.

Jude let out a small sigh. “You sure it’s okay?” he asked.

Zero would have wanted to say something deeper or cockier, but all he managed to say was: “Always with you.”

Jude snorted and pecked his lips. “Lube,” he said without parting. “Love you, but _lube_.”

Zero huffed and planted another peck before stretching an arm behind him and internally thanking his long wingspan, as he grabbed the bottle left on the nightstand from the night before. He kept softly nipping and biting at Jude’s collarbones, leaving several rosy marks on his skin as Jude was pouring some onto his hands, and it’s only when he felt the cold, slick fingers of Jude wrapping around his cock that he let out a hiss of protest.

“ _Cold_ ,” Zero sputtered, offended.

“You know what it’s for,” Jude retorted with a satisfied grin as he kept slicking him up nonchalantly.

Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have woken him up at 7 a.m. on his birthday but _that was mean_. Zero wriggled with a whine, but the fact that Jude had to arch his back to reach behind him, which basically made every muscle of his body stand out under his skin, caused his protests to quickly die down — and his heart to miss a couple of beats. Jude let out a breathless chuckle and lifted himself up, his movements slow and careful as he pressed the tip of his cock inside of him. Their backs arched at the same moment, pressing their chests together, then after a second of getting used to Zero’s girth, Jude took him all the way inside himself.

Zero’s eyes closed as his jaw fell open in a silent moan, his head dropping to Jude’s shoulder at the sudden shot of pleasure. Jude breathed hard, fingers digging into Zero’s shoulders, and slowly, tentatively almost, started to roll his hips. There was a high-pitched moan that flew out of his parted lips and Zero’s stomach immediately clenched at the sound.

They moaned in unison when Jude lifted himself up and sank back down. Zero started mouthing at Jude’s neck, his hips stuttering up mid-thrust, and the pace that his boyfriend had set brutally quickened, his hips moving faster.

Zero reached for Jude’s cock, immediately drawing a broken moan from him, and started stroking him. His stomach was all in knots, shoulders tense; body trembling. Jude lowered himself, and claimed his mouth in a messy kiss, his body clenching around Zero.

“I-I’m gonna come,” Jude whimpered.

“Do it baby,” Zero whispered.

Jude leaned back to straddle him, sinking down on him haphazardly a couple more times, his hips staggering. He cried out as his orgasm struck him, come spilling onto Zero’s hand. His boyfriend’s flushed cheeks and messy hair and hard breath were enough of a sight for Zero to come two seconds later, his orgasm ripped from him, almost painful.

His head was spinning as he came down from his high, and he dropped himself back onto the mattress, chest heaving hard, blood pounding in his ears, before Jude slumped forward on top of him.

After a wonderful moment of nothing, nothing but their hearts drumming in rhythm, Zero finally found the strength to pull back and ease Jude down next to him. They remained two beautiful, sticky and panting messes for a few more minutes before Zero glanced lazily at his boyfriend.

“Hey,” he said, running a hand through his hair, “turns out it wasn’t the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

Jude snorted, and elbowed him in the ribs. “Just shut _up_.”

“Make me.”

*

If Jude was hoping to be discreet, his intentions were shattered with a sledgehammer when Raquel screamed a ‘ _Happy Birthday!_ ’, that everyone probably heard all the way to Mars, as soon as he climbed out of his car in the parking lot, the following afternoon.

“I’m not sure this is the right moment to tell you that you are now allowed to drink alcohol anywhere,” she said with a pointed stare, and Jude winced.

“You promised to stop bringing that up,” he pointed out, pouting, as they walked among the parked cars.

“I negotiated a week’s notice,” Raquel retorted. “What did you get from Zero?”

Jude shrugged. “Nothing yet.”

Raquel cocked an eyebrow. “Really? Maybe he’ll just give it to you tonight-” She abruptly stopped and grabbed his arm. “ _Oh my God_ , I’m pretty sure it is, like, something sexual.”

Jude’s cheeks reddened and he shushed Raquel after glancing around, embarrassed. “I’m pretty sure it’s _not_.”

“Why not? It’d be hot,” Raquel grinned.

“That part was already taken care of this morning, now shut up and walk,” Jude mumbled as he dragged her away from a group of people chatting close-by.

“You guys are so in love it’s making me sick.”

Jude snorted and shook his head. They walked together, bickering about whether or not discussing Jude’s sex life was relevant and even appropriate, until they reached the building where Raquel was supposed to spend her next period. She made him promise at least five times not to forget about stopping by their flat later in the evening before going downtown to have dinner with Lionel, so she could give him his gift; then Jude went on his way. He wasn’t proud to use up most of his first lecture period answering his friends’ birthday wishes, but eh, he wasn’t 21 every day. In their group chat, Terrence didn’t miss the opportunity to tease Raquel and Zero for being the last babes of the Gang. Raquel answered right away that everybody knew who the big whiny baby was. Zero’s answer was a very graphic emoji that had Jude coughing to hide his laugh.

In complete honesty, he actually forgot about the mystery gift until he came back home later in the afternoon to an overexcited boyfriend.

“Just sit here, okay?” Zero insisted as he drew him to the living room and made him sit down on the couch.

“Uh… Okay,” Jude replied, unsure.

Was he worried? A little bit.

“Close your eyes,” Zero ordered after planting a peck on his lips. He got up from the couch and Jude closed his eyes.

He heard Zero’s footsteps leave the room and a door opening. There was a short silence in the flat and Jude felt slightly awkward waiting like this. He figured he could open his eyes if Zero wasn’t around but he chose to be a good boyfriend and kicked off his shoes blindly before sitting cross-legged.

“Okay,” Zero drawled as he came back nearby, sitting on the couch.

“Should I be worried?” Jude teased. As soon as he finished his sentence, he felt a soft puff of air and a cold, moist thing on his cheek, making him startle and back away. “ _What the_...?” he yelped, and despite his best efforts, his eyes snapped open just as Zero's giggles invaded the room.

His heart jerked in his chest and his eyes widened instantly when his gaze dropped onto the golden ball of fur Zero was holding, just a few inches away from his face. “Is that...? _Did you really_...?” he sputtered, dumbfounded.

“It’s called a puppy, I believe,” Zero grinned, and just like that, he handed him the cutest baby golden retriever the world had ever seen. “I thought you were the smart one in this relationship.”

Jude immediately welcomed the pup in his arms as it tried climbing up his crossed legs, its tail happily swatting the air. “I’d give you the middle finger if I wasn’t already busy falling in love,” Jude cooed as he hugged the puppy, still a little stunned.

It looked so small and so _fluffy_ , with its chubby body and clumsy movements that Jude decided right then and there that it was the cutest thing he had ever seen in his entire life.

_My boyfriend gave me a puppy._

Objectively, there wasn’t anything in this world that could be sappier than that.

But Jude knew he had never been happier either.

Zero laughed at the sight and slid closer, looking extremely satisfied. “So it’s a done deal? We’ve got a baby girl?”

“If anybody tries to take her from me, I might kill someone,” Jude immediately replied as Zero started petting the pup as well. “She’s just so tiny and so _perfect_.”

“Happy birthday,” Zero smiled, nuzzling Jude’s shoulder.

Jude grinned back and claimed his lips for a sweet kiss, soon broken by the eager puppy in his arms. He chuckled and opened his arms, letting her wander clumsily onto the couch and climb into Zero’s lap.

“Where the hell did you get this idea?”

Zero smirked down at their baby-girl. “Well, to be fair it’s not easy to come up with a gift idea for someone who can basically buy whatever they want, anytime they want,” he pointed out, and Jude immediately opened his mouth to protest that it didn’t matter how expensive it was, but Zero surely knew it was bound to happen so he quickly added: “You and I, we’ve never really had a conventional childhood in the end. I just wanted to give you a little piece of… well, _that_ before we officially become boring grown-ups with boring lives.”

A wave of unconditional love spread through Jude’s body as the words flew out of Zero’s mouth, his beautiful blue eyes focused on the small ball of fur on his lap. Jude leaned against the backrest of the couch and turned Zero’s face towards him. “I don’t think we will ever be boring.”

Zero snorted. “Nah, you’re right. Disgustingly in love maybe.”

“That I can picture,” Jude laughed, and the puppy suddenly let out the tiniest and quietest yapping, obviously demanding more attention. “You’re going to be the most spoiled princess of this town.”

“Look at her,” Zero cooed. “She’s so precious, she _deserves_ it all.”

Jude chuckled fondly, reveling in the sight of Zero smiling and giggling at their puppy. For once, it actually reached his beautiful eyes.

“Babe?”

“Yeah?”

“We aren’t calling her Jenna Bourne.”


	32. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's a(nother) wrap!  
> Wow, it's been a wild ride since it started off and I'm super grateful for everybody who kept reading update after update, it means the whole world to me. I'm so sorry for having played times and times again with the whole angsty thing, I just can't help it, and I hope you guys didn't hate me this much for that :(( special thank you to Duraffinity ofc for betareading my stories and listening to all of my headcanons (trust me there are a lot) and complaints! ;D 
> 
> Thank you so much for all the kudos and the sweet comments. <3 <3

 

Half past nine.

Jude stared at the clock on his dashboard, barely blinking as the minutes dragged on. It took him five more to muster up the courage to unbuckle his seatbelt, grab his briefcase from the passenger’s seat and climb out of his car. The night had already fallen upon Boston, but the underground parking lot of his building was echoing with the traffic outside and the restaurants of the first floor.

It was still a little alien to him, to be honest. Midnight was usually the hour at which he was only starting to consider hurrying his ass at the office to solve whatever unfinished business was left, and he was rarely (if ever) at home before one, so his knowledge of Boston’s nightlife was practically non-existent. Frankly, he was fine with it. Except that Moriarty, the senior associate he was working for these days, valued sleep far too much for his taste. Coincidentally, all the partners he was supposed to be taking care of were located in the US, so instead of having normal 10pm video-conferences with bankers from Hong-Kong, he was forced to make room for Texan company-owners in the middle of the afternoon.

“No one wants to work with the remake of The Walking Dead,” Moriarty had sighed with a pointed stare when she dropped by his office earlier in the evening. “Go get some decent sleep before you do any real damage.”

He had wanted to argue, but it wasn’t one of those things that was expected from a first-year attorney in a fancy law-firm. His last name, or his familial connections through Lionel, had opened many doors for him in the past year; but he rather wanted to avoid begging for his job.

So he was here.

Home, or so they said.

Jude walked to the elevator and directly hit the fourth floor button, leaning against the steely panels of the cramped space with his hands shoved in his pockets. He stared at his distorted reflection; then he dragged himself out of the elevator, his keys jingling in his hands as he was opening the front door of his loft, flipping the lights on. It was a nice place on Atlantic Avenue, with a view of Boston’s Harbor in the main bedroom, and generally flooded with light; but Jude was rarely there before dusk, so he could hardly tell. He had never lived in such a small place since he had left his dorm in college, but he didn’t mind, rather the opposite actually.

Living in a five-bedroom penthouse wasn’t really appealing when you lived on your own.

Circumstances had left a man-size hole in his life that he had found was impossible to fill, except for his job. Since working twelve hours a day was enough to keep him away from an empty home, cold sheets and a broken heart, he had dedicated himself to this sole purpose. And after eight solid months with barely any days off or vacations, he had become one of the most appreciated and valued baby-lawyers at Geller & Simmons.

He shut the door and put the briefcase down on the black leather couch. Took off his tie, undid his cufflinks and the top buttons of his dress-shirt: these were the most regimented fifteen seconds of his daily life, the things he was doing without thinking, without even noticing sometimes. He hated doing this. He hated the fact that he had these habits in the first place. His suit jacket was discarded on the edge of the couch as he made his way to the kitchen. The fridge was mostly empty, he noted bluntly as he retrieved a water bottle, but again, he wasn’t sure he had used the kitchen since he had moved in. He was living on take-out, coffee and cigarettes, a new habit he had taken up nearly six months ago when he had figured that it was a great way to force himself to occasionally go outside and get some fresh air.

Jude stared at the clock on the wall of the kitchen. He could hit the shower now and work on the files he had brought home. He walked out of the kitchen and padded into the bedroom, flipping the lights on, already unbuttoning his dress-shirt.

“So this’s what it really looks like, huh? I don’t see the fancy sheen of the lawyer lifestyle”, a voice said, only half-joking.

Jude startled violently and stumbled back against the drawer as he stared, wide-eyed, at his boyfriend sitting cross-legged on the bed. His sparkling blue eyes were gleaming with the evident pleasure caused by Jude’s reaction, and the stubble he had grown for the last couple of weeks was emphasizing his cheekbones even more than when he was perfectly shaven, something Jude always forgot was even _possible_.

“W-What are you doing here?!” Jude sputtered, barely able to talk. “You’re supposed to be on a plane for Belgrade!”

Zero smiled and got up. “I’ll take another flight tomorrow morning, everything’s booked.”

Jude was still gripping at the drawer, finding it even harder than before to find his balance as Zero was walking in his direction. The fact that Zero had kicked his shoes off somewhere made his heart ache and flutter with just the same amount of intensity. It only _looked_ like he was home for real.

But it was just for one night. Just one.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” Zero asked, cocking his head to the side with a smirk.

Jude finally let go of the drawer, heartbeat drumming, and grabbed Zero by his hoodie, throwing his arms around him as their bodies crashed together. “Of course I am, you _idiot_ ,” he blurted out, burying his face in Zero’s neck while his boyfriend laughed quietly.

He inhaled Zero’s scent, his cologne; pressing his lips against the soft skin of his neck. It was as if he was falling in love all over again, as he took in all the things he loved about him, all the things he had been missing for the past month — the last time Zero had come home for a weekend, and pretty much the last time Jude had smiled. His lips soon found Zero’s and they kissed almost aggressively, Zero’s arms like an iron grip around his waist, Jude’s hand digging into his shoulder, the other tangling in his hair. It turned sloppy and uncoordinated, breathless and fierce, and Jude wanted to cry because they had only one night ahead, and they would have to talk about their lives, about the fact that Zero had interrupted his schedule to come here in the middle of the fucking _play_ - _offs_ , that he was jet-lagged as fuck and that it was stupid and irresponsible; they would have to do all that _because_ tomorrow morning he would be gone and Jude would be all alone again, without even a pillow to smell because it wouldn’t have had the time to even catch Zero’s scent.

He knew all of that, and yet, when they parted for air and Zero softly pressed a finger to Jude’s lips to stop him from kissing again, his heart clenched brutally.

“Do you know what day it is?” Zero asked softly.

Jude had to think about it for a few seconds. “Thursday, April 28.” Zero was looking at him, almost expectantly, but Jude’s mind was literally empty, and it must have shown because the baller soon broke into a soft laugh.

“I don’t have the time to pretend I’m upset or vexed or anything,” he said, before parting a little.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jude insisted. He hated that feeling of not getting what it was about; _especially_ if he had messed up about something.

“Look behind you,” Zero huffed and Jude stared at the dresser, at the various stuff there: a few framed pictures, the keys to Zero’s condo back in Serbia where he had been once, an old phone case, a large memo board with family pictures, Lionel’s third marriage announcement, some pictures of Doodle from the time she had been living with him back when he was attending Georgetown, others since she had gone to Belgrade with Zero… And a small black box he had never seen before and was pretty sure wasn’t there when he had left this morning. His head snapped back to Zero, heart beating fast as his eyes dropped, and dropped, and dropped, until they finally reached where his boyfriend was below him; down on one knee.

“Five years. That’s what _you_ promised,” Zero said softly. “It’s been five years. One thousand eight hundred twenty seven days, two hundred sixty one weeks, and a whole bunch of hours I was too lazy to count.” He reached for his hand and squeezed it lightly. “It’s not true that being on the other side of the world has made me realize you’re what I wanted most in life, because I already knew that before I had to go. I knew that before we had to schedule our phone-calls and our meetings, I knew that before I realized I’d never stop looking for you after a big win even when I know you’re in Boston.” He pressed his lips together and Jude felt like he was sinking into his beautiful eyes. “I just… You’re my everything, and I want to spend my life with you. Nine years is - it’s far too _little_ to show you how much I love you, I want a freaking lifetime with you. I want Waffle Sundays, I want a first dance with you, I want to wake up with you beside me every day. I want to raise a kid with your eyes. I want all of it, the good and the bad, just like we’ve been doing since the beginning. I’m not asking you to be my husband. Jude Alexander Kinkade, I’m _begging_ you to let me be yours. I’m begging you to let me be a part of your family and of your life forever.”

Jude’s mind went blank for a second…maybe ten. Then he literally fell to his knees, joining Zero on the ground, before throwing him off balance and sending them both to the floor and crashing their mouths together.

Zero took that as a yes.

And hell, he was right.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...  
> This isn't supposed to be the end of that monster that I keep calling an AU. I don't know when, but I'll definitely be coming back to this, for a third and last story that should wreck my nerves and my heart. I'm always available on tumblr to talk in the meantime tho!! :D Lots of love, you guys are amazing <3


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